The
cite-mkbib
commands copies
file
to standard output, looking for strings of the form "[[label]]"
and for a template for a bibliography. The label may not include white
space and the double pair of square brackets must enclose the label
without any spaces in between. If
cite-mkbib
finds the label in the
bibfile,
the string is replaced by the
pattern.
The pattern can include certain variables. If the label is not found
in
bibfile,
it is left unchanged.
The default pattern replaces the string with a hyperlink, but if the
-p
option is used, the replacement can be any pattern. The input doesn't
even have to be HTML.
The
file
consists of three parts:
preamble
The preamble is the part up to the first occurrence of
%{.
The preamble is copied to the output once (with bracketed labels
("[[label]]") expanded). The character
%
is treated specially. To create a single % in the output, there must
be two in the preamble (%%). All other occurrences of % followed by
another letter are not copied, but are collected into a string called
the "sort order." and used to sort the entries, as explained below.
template
The template starts with
%{L:
and ends with a matching
%}.
The text in between is copied as often as there are bibliographic
entries in
bibfile
that correspond to bracketed labels in
file.
Variables in the template are replaced by the corresponding field in
the bibliographic entry: all occurrences of
%x
will be replaced by the field
%x
of the entry. Parts of the text may be enclosed in
%{x:
and
%}.
This means that the text in between should only be output if the
current entry has a field
x.
Text that is enclosed in
%{!x:
and
%}
will only be output if the entry does
not
have a field
x.
Both kinds of conditional sections may also be nested.
postamble
The text after the
%}
is copied unchanged to the output, after all bibliographic entries
have been processed.
By default bibliographic entries are copied to the output in the order
of the labels in
file,
except that labels that occur more than once are only used once. If
the preamble contains occurrences of
%x
(where
x
is neither "%" nor "{") then these together determine the sort order.
E.g., if the preamble contains %A%D then the entries will be sorted
first on field A (author) and then on field D (date).
Here is an example of a file that creates a bibliography in HTML
format:
<html>
<title>Bibliography</title>
... text with [[references]] here...
<!--%A%D sorted on author, then date -->
<dl>
%{L:
<dt id="%L">%{A:A%}%{!A:%{E:E%}%{!E:%{Q:Q%}%{!Q:-%}%}%}</dt>
<dd>%{B:"%T"
in: %{E:%E (eds)
%}<cite>%B.</cite>%{V: %V.%}
%}%{J:"%T"
in: %{E:%E (eds)
%}<cite>%J.</cite>%{V: %V.%}%{N: %N.%}%{P: pp. %P.%}
%}%{!B:%{!J:<cite>%T.</cite>
%}%}%{I:%I.
%}%{D:%D.
%}%{C:%C.
%}%{R:%R.
%}%{S:%S.
%}%{O:%O
%}%{U:<a href="%U">%U</a>
%}</dd>
%}
</dl>
</html>
This template starts with four lines of preamble, including the sort
string %A%D on line 3. The sort string itself will not be output, but
the rest of the comment will.
From the line
%{L:
to the line
%}
is the template. E.g., the line that
starts with
<dt
contains a complex conditional text that prints the authors (%A) if
there are any, otherwise the editors (%E) if there are any, otherwise
the institution that is the author (%Q), if any, and a dash otherwise.
Note how the parts are nested, Most of the text is inside
%{!A:...%},
meaning that that part will only be effective if there is no author
field (%A).
The final two lines are the postamble and will simply be copied
unchanged.
Specifies the pattern by which the string [[label]] is replaced.
The pattern may include the variables
%b
(which will be replaced by the value of the
-b
option) and
%L
(which will be replaced by the
label).
The default pattern is
<a href="%b#%L" rel="biblioentry">[%L]</a>
If there are multiple authors or editors in an entry, their names will
be listed with a separator in between. By default the separator is ";
" (i.e., a semicolon and a space). With this option the separator can
be changed.
The name of a bibliographic database must be given. It must be a file
in
refer(1)
format and every entry must have at least a
%L
field, which is compared to the bracketed labels. (Entries without
such a field will be ignored.)
file
The name of the input file is optional. If absent,
mkbib(1)
will read the template from stdin.
An error occurred. Usually this is because a file could not be opened
or because the %{ and %} pairs are not properly nested.
Very rarely it may also be an out of memory error. Some of the
possible error messages:
missing
mkbib
found a %{ but the second or third letter after it was not a colon.
no
The template file is unusable, because it contains no template.
Sorting is primitive: the program doesn't parse dates or names and
simply sorts "Jan 2000" under the letter "J" and "Albert Camus" under
the letter "A". For the moment the only work-around is to put names in
the
bibfile
as "Camus, Albert".
The program simply lists all authors or editors. There is no way to
generate an "et. al." after the third one. The work-around is to put
the "et. al." in the
bibfile.
Putting commas between the first authors and the word "and" before the
final one is also not possible.
The program doesn't try to interpret names of authors or editors and
they cannot be reformatted. It is impossible to write a name that is
specified as "Sartre, Jean-Paul" in the
bibfile
as "J. Sartre" or as "Jean-Paul Sartre" in the output.
There is no way to suppress a period after a field if the field
already ends with a period. E.g., the template "%{A:A.%}" may generate
"A. Person Jr.." if the author is "A. Person Jr." The only option is
to either not put periods in the
bibfile
or not put periods in the template.
Entries in the
bibfile
can only be used if they have a
%L
(label) field. The program cannot find entries by searching for
keywords, like
refer(1).
mkbib
will replace any ampersands (&) and less-than (<) and greater-than (>)
signs that occur in the
bibfile
by their XML entities & < > on the assumption that the
template is HTML/XML. This may not be appropriate for other formats.
cite-mkbib
is a (bash) shell script that calls
cite(1)
and
mkbib(1),
and is therefore not portable to all platforms.