All options can be abbreviated to a unique leading prefix.
An explicit file name of ``-'' represents standard input; it is assumed if no input files are specified.
On VAX VMS and IBM PC DOS, the leading ``-'' on option names may be replaced by a slash, ``/''; however, the ``-'' option prefix is always recognized.
Here is a summary of the formatting actions:
This checking is usually beneficial, but if it produces too many bogus warnings for a particular bibliography file, you can disable it with the negative form of this option. Default: yes.
When bibclean is compiled with native pattern-matching code (the default), these patterns are the ones that will be used in checking value strings for valid syntax, and all of them are specified in initialization files, rather than hard-coded into the program. For further details, see the INITIALIZATION FILES manual section. Default: no.
Error messages begin with a distinctive pair of queries, ??, beginning in column 1, followed by the input file name and line number. If the -file-position option was specified, they also contain the input and output positions of the current file, entry, and value. Each position includes the file byte number, the line number, and the column number. In the event of a runaway string argument, the entry and value positions should precisely pinpoint the erroneous bibliography entry, and the file positions will indicate where it was detected, which may be rather later in the files.
Warning messages identify possible problems, and are therefore sent only to stderr, and not to stdout, so they never appear in the output file. They are identified by a distinctive pair of percents, %%, beginning in column 1, and as with error messages, may be followed by file position messages if the -file-position option was specified.
For convenience, the first line of each error and warning message sent to stderr is formatted according to the expectations of the GNU Emacs next-error command. You can invoke bibclean with the Emacs M-x compile<RET>bibclean filename.bib >filename.new command, then use the next-error command, normally bound to C-x ` (that's a grave, or back, accent), to move to the location of the error in the input file.
If error messages are ignored, and left in the output bibliography file, they will precipitate an error when the bibliography is next processed with BibTeX.
After issuing an error message, bibclean then resynchronizes its input by copying it verbatim to stdout until a new bibliography entry is recognized on a line in which the first non-blank character is an at-sign (@). This ensures that nothing is lost from the input file(s), allowing corrections to be made in either the input or the output files. However, if bibclean detects an internal error in its data structures, it will terminate abruptly without further input or output processing; this kind of error should never happen, and if it does, it should be reported immediately to the author of the program. Errors in initialization files, and running out of dynamic memory, will also immediately terminate bibclean.
- The original version uses explicit hand-coded tests of value-string syntax.
- The second version uses regular-expression pattern-matching host library routines together with regular-expression patterns that come entirely from initialization files.
- The third version uses special patterns that come entirely from initialization files.
The second and third versions are the ones of most interest here, because they allow the user to control what values are considered acceptable. However, command-line options can also be specified in initialization files, no matter which pattern matching choice was selected.
When bibclean starts, it searches for initialization files, finding the first one in the system executable program search path (on UNIX and IBM PC DOS, PATH) and the first one in the BIBINPUTS search path, and processes them in turn. Then, when command-line arguments are processed, any additional files specified by -init-filefilename options are also processed. Finally, immediately before each named bibliography file is processed, an attempt is made to process an initialization file with the same name, but with the extension changed to .ini. This scheme permits system-wide, user-wide, session-wide, and file-specific initialization files to be supported.
When input is taken from stdin, there is no file-specific initialization.
For precise control, the -no-init-files option suppresses all initialization files except those explicitly named by -init-filefilename options, either on the command line, or in requested initialization files.
Recursive execution of initialization files with nested -init-file options is permitted; if the recursion is circular, bibclean will finally get a non-fatal initialization file open failure after opening too many files. This terminates further initialization file processing. As the recursion unwinds, the files are all closed, then execution proceeds normally.
An initialization file may contain empty lines, comments from percent to end of line (just like TeX), option switches, and key/pattern or key/pattern/message assignments. Leading and trailing spaces are ignored. This is best illustrated by a short example:
% This is a small bibclean initialization file -init-file /u/math/bib/.bibcleanrc %% departmental patterns chapter = "\"D\"" %% 23 pages = "\"D--D\"" %% 23--27 volume = "\"D \an\d D\"" %% 11 and 12 year = \ "\"dddd, dddd, dddd\"" \ "Multiple years specified." %% 1989, 1990, 1991 -no-fix-names %% do not modify author/editor lists
Long logical lines can be split into multiple physical lines by breaking at a backslash-newline pair; the backslash-newline pair is discarded. This processing happens while characters are being read, before any further interpretation of the input stream.
Each logical line must contain a complete option (and its value, if any), or a complete key/pattern pair, or a key/pattern/message triple.
Comments are stripped during the parsing of the key, pattern, and message values. The comment start symbol is not recognized inside quoted strings, so it can be freely used in such strings.
Comments on logical lines that were input as multiple physical lines via the backslash-newline convention must appear on the last physical line; otherwise, the remaining physical lines will become part of the comment.
Pattern strings must be enclosed in quotation marks; within such strings, a backslash starts an escape mechanism that is commonly used in UNIX software. The recognized escape sequences are:
- \a
- alarm bell (octal 007)
- \b
- backspace (octal 010)
- \f
- formfeed (octal 014)
- \n
- newline (octal 012)
- \r
- carriage return (octal 015)
- \t
- horizontal tab (octal 011)
- \v
- vertical tab (octal 013)
- \ooo
- character number octal ooo (e.g 12 is linefeed)
- xhh
- character number hexadecimal hh (e.g. x0a is linefeed) Xhh is character number hexadecimal hh (e.g. X0A is linefeed)
Backslash followed by any other character produces just that character. Thus, \% gets a literal percent into a string (preventing its interpretation as a comment), \" produces a quotation mark, and \ produces a single backslash.
Use of an ASCII NUL ( ) in a string will terminate it; this is a feature of the C programming language in which bibclean is implemented.
Key/pattern pairs can be separated by arbitrary space, and optionally, either an equals or colon functioning as an assignment operator. Thus, the following are equivalent:
pages="\"D--D\"" pages:"\"D--D\"" pages "\"D--D\"" pages = "\"D--D\"" pages : "\"D--D\"" pages "\"D--D\""
Each key name can have an arbitrary number of patterns associated with it; however, they must be specified in separate key/pattern assignments.
An empty pattern string causes previously-loaded patterns for that key name to be forgotten. This feature permits an initialization file to completely discard patterns from earlier initialization files.
Patterns for value strings are represented in a tiny special-purpose language that is both convenient and suitable for bibliography value string syntax checking. While not as powerful as the language of regular-expression patterns, its parsing can be portably implemented in less than 3% of the code in a widely-used regular-expression parser (the GNU regexp package).
The patterns are represented by the following special characters:
- <space>
- one or more spaces
- a
- exactly one letter
- A
- one or more letters
- d
- exactly one digit
- D
- one or more digits
- w
- exactly one word (one or more letters and digits)
- W
- one or more space-separated words, beginning and ending with a word
- .
- one `special' character, one of the characters <space>!#()*+,-./:;?[]~, a subset of punctuation characters that are typically used in string values
- :
- one or more `special' characters
- X
- one or more `special'-separated words, beginning and ending with a word
- \x
- exactly one x (x is any character), possibly with an escape sequence interpretation given earlier
- x
- exactly the character x (x is anything but one of these pattern characters: aAdDwW.:<space>\)
The X pattern character is very powerful, but generally inadvisable, since it will match almost anything likely to be found in a BibTeX value string. The reason for providing pattern matching on the value strings is to uncover possible errors, not mask them.
There is no provision for specifying ranges or repetitions of characters, but this can usually be done with separate patterns. It is a good idea to accompany the pattern with a comment showing the kind of thing it is expected to match. Here is a portion of an initialization file giving a few of the patterns used to match number value strings:
number = "\"D\"" %% 23 number = "\"A AD\"" %% PN LPS5001 number = "\"A D(D)\"" %% RJ 34(49) number = "\"A D\"" %% XNSS 288811 number = "\"A D\.D\"" %% Version 3.20 number = "\"A-A-D-D\"" %% UMIAC-TR-89-11 number = "\"A-A-D\"" %% CS-TR-2189 number = "\"A-A-D\.D\"" %% CS-TR-21.7
For a bibliography that contains only article entries, this list should probably be reduced to just the first pattern, so that anything other than a digit string fails the pattern-match test. This is easily done by keeping bibliography-specific patterns in a corresponding file with extension .ini, since that file is read automatically.
You should be sure to use empty pattern strings in this pattern file to discard patterns from earlier initialization files.
The value strings passed to the pattern matcher contain surrounding quotes, so the patterns should also. However, you could use a pattern specification like "\"D" to match an initial digit string followed by anything else; the omission of the final quotation mark \" in the pattern allows the match to succeed without checking that the next character in the value string is a quotation mark.
Because the value strings are intended to be processed by TeX, the pattern matching ignores braces, and TeX control sequences, together with any space following those control sequences. Space around braces are preserved. This convention allows the pattern fragment A-AD-D to match the value string TN-K\slash27-70, because the value is implicitly collapsed to TN-K27-70 during the matching operation.
bibclean's normal action when a string value fails to match any of the corresponding patterns is to issue a warning message something like this: "Unexpected value in ``year = "192"''. In most cases, that is sufficient to alert the user to a problem. In some cases, however, it may be desirable to associate a different message with a particular pattern. This can be done by supplying a message string following the pattern string. Format items %% (single percent), %e (entry name), %k (key name), %t (citation tag), and %v (string value) are available to get current values expanded in the messages. Here is an example:
chapter = "\"D:D\"" "Colon found in ``%k = %v''" %% 23:2
To be consistent with other messages output by bibclean, the message string should not end with punctuation.
If you wish to make the message an error, rather than just a warning, begin it with a query (?), like this:
chapter = "\"D:D\"" "?Colon found in ``%k = %v''" %% 23:2
The query will not be included in the output message.
Escape sequences are supported in message strings, just as they are in pattern strings. You can use this to advantage for fancy things, such as terminal display mode control. If you rewrite the previous example as
chapter = "\"D:D\"" \
"? 33[7mColon found in ``%k = %v'' 33[0m" %% 23:2
the error message will appear in inverse video on display screens that support ANSI terminal control sequences. Such practice is not normally recommended, since it may have undesirable effects on some output devices. Nevertheless, you may find it useful for restricted applications.
For some types of bibliography keys, bibclean contains special-purpose code to supplement or replace the pattern matching:
- ISBN and ISSN fields are handled this way because their validation requires evaluation of checksums that cannot be expressed by simple patterns; no patterns are even used in these two cases.
- When bibclean is compiled with pattern-matching code support, chapter, number, pages, and volume values are checked only by pattern matching.
- month values are first checked against the standard BibTeX month abbreviations, and only if no match is found are patterns then used.
- year values are first checked against patterns, then if no match is found, the year numbers are found and converted to integer values for testing against reasonable bounds.
Values for other keywords are checked only against patterns. You can provide patterns for any keyword you like, even ones bibclean does not already know about. New ones are simply added to an internal table that is searched for each string to be validated.
The special keyword, tag, represents the bibliographic citation tag. It can be given patterns, like any other keyword. Here is an initialization file pattern assignment that will match an author name, a colon, an alphabetic string, and a two-digit year:
tag = "A:Add" %% Knuth:TB86
Notice that no quotation marks are included in the pattern, because the citation tags are not quoted. You can use such patterns to help enforce uniform naming conventions for citation tags, which is increasingly important as your bibliography data base grows.
The BibTeX bibliography format was strongly influenced by Scribe, and indeed, with care, it is possible to share bibliography files between the two systems. Nevertheless, there are some differences, so here is a summary of features of the Scribe bibliography file format:
@Begin{comment}
...
@End{comment}
permits encapsulating arbitrary text containing any characters or delimiters, other than ``@End{comment}''. Any of the seven delimiter pairs may be used around the word ``comment'' following the ``@Begin'' or ``@End''; the delimiters in the two cases need not be the same, and consequently, ``@Begin{comment}''/``@End{comment}'' pairs may not be nested.
Nelson H. F. Beebe
Center for Scientific Computing
Department of Mathematics
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, UT 84112
USA
Tel: +1 801 581 5254
FAX: +1 801 581 4148
Email: <[email protected]>