grefer
(1)
Name
grefer - preprocess bibliographic references for groff
Synopsis
grefer [ -benvCPRS ] [ -an ] [ -cfields ] [ -fn ]
[ -ifields ] [ -kfield ] [ -lm,n ] [ -pfilename ]
[ -sfields ] [ -tn ] [ -Bfield.macro ]
[ filename... ]
It is possible to have whitespace between a command line
option and its parameter.
Description
User Commands GREFER(1)
NAME
grefer - preprocess bibliographic references for groff
SYNOPSIS
grefer [ -benvCPRS ] [ -an ] [ -cfields ] [ -fn ]
[ -ifields ] [ -kfield ] [ -lm,n ] [ -pfilename ]
[ -sfields ] [ -tn ] [ -Bfield.macro ]
[ filename... ]
It is possible to have whitespace between a command line
option and its parameter.
DESCRIPTION
This file documents the GNU version of refer, which is part
of the groff document formatting system. refer copies the
contents of filename... to the standard output, except that
lines between .[ and .] are interpreted as citations, and
lines between .R1 and .R2 are interpreted as commands about
how citations are to be processed.
Each citation specifies a reference. The citation can spec-
ify a reference that is contained in a bibliographic data-
base by giving a set of keywords that only that reference
contains. Alternatively it can specify a reference by sup-
plying a database record in the citation. A combination of
these alternatives is also possible.
For each citation, refer can produce a mark in the text.
This mark consists of some label which can be separated from
the text and from other labels in various ways. For each
reference it also outputs groff commands that can be used by
a macro package to produce a formatted reference for each
citation. The output of refer must therefore be processed
using a suitable macro package. The -ms and -me macros are
both suitable. The commands to format a citation's refer-
ence can be output immediately after the citation, or the
references may be accumulated, and the commands output at
some later point. If the references are accumulated, then
multiple citations of the same reference will produce a sin-
gle formatted reference.
The interpretation of lines between .R1 and .R2 as commands
is a new feature of GNU refer. Documents making use of this
feature can still be processed by Unix refer just by adding
the lines
.de R1
.ig R2
..
to the beginning of the document. This will cause troff to
ignore everything between .R1 and .R2. The effect of some
commands can also be achieved by options. These options are
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User Commands GREFER(1)
supported mainly for compatibility with Unix refer. It is
usually more convenient to use commands.
refer generates .lf lines so that filenames and line numbers
in messages produced by commands that read refer output will
be correct; it also interprets lines beginning with .lf so
that filenames and line numbers in the messages and .lf
lines that it produces will be accurate even if the input
has been preprocessed by a command such as gsoelim(1).
OPTIONS
Most options are equivalent to commands (for a description
of these commands see the Commands subsection):
-b no-label-in-text; no-label-in-reference
-e accumulate
-n no-default-database
-C compatible
-P move-punctuation
-S label "(A.n|Q) ', ' (D.y|D)"; bracket-label " (" ) "; "
-an reverse An
-cfields
capitalize fields
-fn label %n
-ifields
search-ignore fields
-k label L~%a
-kfield
label field~%a
-l label A.nD.y%a
-lm label A.n+mD.y%a
-l,n label A.nD.y-n%a
-lm,n
label A.n+mD.y-n%a
-pfilename
database filename
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-sspec
sort spec
-tn search-truncate n
These options are equivalent to the following commands with
the addition that the filenames specified on the command
line are processed as if they were arguments to the bibliog-
raphy command instead of in the normal way:
-B annotate X AP; no-label-in-reference
-Bfield.macro
annotate field macro; no-label-in-reference
The following options have no equivalent commands:
-v Print the version number.
-R Don't recognize lines beginning with .R1/.R2.
USAGE
Bibliographic databases
The bibliographic database is a text file consisting of
records separated by one or more blank lines. Within each
record fields start with a % at the beginning of a line.
Each field has a one character name that immediately follows
the %. It is best to use only upper and lower case letters
for the names of fields. The name of the field should be
followed by exactly one space, and then by the contents of
the field. Empty fields are ignored. The conventional
meaning of each field is as follows:
A The name of an author. If the name contains a title
such as Jr. at the end, it should be separated from the
last name by a comma. There can be multiple occur-
rences of the A field. The order is significant. It
is a good idea always to supply an A field or a Q
field.
B For an article that is part of a book, the title of the
book.
C The place (city) of publication.
D The date of publication. The year should be specified
in full. If the month is specified, the name rather
than the number of the month should be used, but only
the first three letters are required. It is a good
idea always to supply a D field; if the date is
unknown, a value such as in press or unknown can be
used.
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E For an article that is part of a book, the name of an
editor of the book. Where the work has editors and no
authors, the names of the editors should be given as A
fields and , (ed) or , (eds) should be appended to the
last author.
G US Government ordering number.
I The publisher (issuer).
J For an article in a journal, the name of the journal.
K Keywords to be used for searching.
L Label.
N Journal issue number.
O Other information. This is usually printed at the end
of the reference.
P Page number. A range of pages can be specified as m-n.
Q The name of the author, if the author is not a person.
This will only be used if there are no A fields. There
can only be one Q field.
R Technical report number.
S Series name.
T Title. For an article in a book or journal, this
should be the title of the article.
V Volume number of the journal or book.
X Annotation.
For all fields except A and E, if there is more than one
occurrence of a particular field in a record, only the last
such field will be used.
If accent strings are used, they should follow the character
to be accented. This means that the AM macro must be used
with the -ms macros. Accent strings should not be quoted:
use one \ rather than two.
Citations
The format of a citation is
.[opening-text
flags keywords
fields
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.]closing-text
The opening-text, closing-text and flags components are
optional. Only one of the keywords and fields components
need be specified.
The keywords component says to search the bibliographic
databases for a reference that contains all the words in
keywords. It is an error if more than one reference if
found.
The fields components specifies additional fields to replace
or supplement those specified in the reference. When refer-
ences are being accumulated and the keywords component is
non-empty, then additional fields should be specified only
on the first occasion that a particular reference is cited,
and will apply to all citations of that reference.
The opening-text and closing-text component specifies
strings to be used to bracket the label instead of the
strings specified in the bracket-label command. If either
of these components is non-empty, the strings specified in
the bracket-label command will not be used; this behaviour
can be altered using the [ and ] flags. Note that leading
and trailing spaces are significant for these components.
The flags component is a list of non-alphanumeric characters
each of which modifies the treatment of this particular
citation. Unix refer will treat these flags as part of the
keywords and so will ignore them since they are non-alphanu-
meric. The following flags are currently recognized:
# This says to use the label specified by the short-label
command, instead of that specified by the label com-
mand. If no short label has been specified, the normal
label will be used. Typically the short label is used
with author-date labels and consists of only the date
and possibly a disambiguating letter; the # is supposed
to be suggestive of a numeric type of label.
[ Precede opening-text with the first string specified in
the bracket-label command.
] Follow closing-text with the second string specified in
the bracket-label command.
One advantages of using the [ and ] flags rather than
including the brackets in opening-text and closing-text is
that you can change the style of bracket used in the docu-
ment just by changing the bracket-label command. Another
advantage is that sorting and merging of citations will not
necessarily be inhibited if the flags are used.
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If a label is to be inserted into the text, it will be
attached to the line preceding the .[ line. If there is no
such line, then an extra line will be inserted before the .[
line and a warning will be given.
There is no special notation for making a citation to multi-
ple references. Just use a sequence of citations, one for
each reference. Don't put anything between the citations.
The labels for all the citations will be attached to the
line preceding the first citation. The labels may also be
sorted or merged. See the description of the <> label
expression, and of the sort-adjacent-labels and abbreviate-
label-ranges command. A label will not be merged if its
citation has a non-empty opening-text or closing-text. How-
ever, the labels for a citation using the ] flag and without
any closing-text immediately followed by a citation using
the [ flag and without any opening-text may be sorted and
merged even though the first citation's opening-text or the
second citation's closing-text is non-empty. (If you wish
to prevent this just make the first citation's closing-text
\&.)
Commands
Commands are contained between lines starting with .R1 and
.R2. Recognition of these lines can be prevented by the -R
option. When a .R1 line is recognized any accumulated ref-
erences are flushed out. Neither .R1 nor .R2 lines, nor
anything between them is output.
Commands are separated by newlines or ;s. # introduces a
comment that extends to the end of the line (but does not
conceal the newline). Each command is broken up into words.
Words are separated by spaces or tabs. A word that begins
with " extends to the next " that is not followed by another
". If there is no such " the word extends to the end of the
line. Pairs of " in a word beginning with " collapse to a
single ". Neither # nor ; are recognized inside "s. A line
can be continued by ending it with \; this works everywhere
except after a #.
Each command name that is marked with * has an associated
negative command no-name that undoes the effect of name.
For example, the no-sort command specifies that references
should not be sorted. The negative commands take no argu-
ments.
In the following description each argument must be a single
word; field is used for a single upper or lower case letter
naming a field; fields is used for a sequence of such let-
ters; m and n are used for a non-negative numbers; string is
used for an arbitrary string; filename is used for the name
of a file.
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abbreviate* fields string1 string2 string3 string4
Abbreviate the first names of
fields. An initial letter will be
separated from another initial let-
ter by string1, from the last name
by string2, and from anything else
(such as a von or de) by string3.
These default to a period followed
by a space. In a hyphenated first
name, the initial of the first part
of the name will be separated from
the hyphen by string4; this
defaults to a period. No attempt
is made to handle any ambiguities
that might result from abbrevia-
tion. Names are abbreviated before
sorting and before label construc-
tion.
abbreviate-label-ranges* string
Three or more adjacent labels that
refer to consecutive references
will be abbreviated to a label con-
sisting of the first label, fol-
lowed by string followed by the
last label. This is mainly useful
with numeric labels. If string is
omitted it defaults to -.
accumulate* Accumulate references instead of
writing out each reference as it is
encountered. Accumulated refer-
ences will be written out whenever
a reference of the form
.[
$LIST$
.]
is encountered, after all input
files hve been processed, and when-
ever .R1 line is recognized.
annotate* field string field is an annotation; print it at
the end of the reference as a para-
graph preceded by the line
.string
If macro is omitted it will default
to AP; if field is also omitted it
will default to X. Only one field
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can be an annotation.
articles string... string... are definite or indefi-
nite articles, and should be
ignored at the beginning of T
fields when sorting. Initially,
the, a and an are recognized as
articles.
bibliography filename... Write out all the references con-
tained in the bibliographic data-
bases filename... This command
should come last in a .R1/.R2
block.
bracket-label string1 string2 string3
In the text, bracket each label
with string1 and string2. An
occurrence of string2 immediately
followed by string1 will be turned
into string3. The default behav-
iour is
bracket-label \*([. \*(.] ", "
capitalize fields Convert fields to caps and small
caps.
compatible* Recognize .R1 and .R2 even when
followed by a character other than
space or newline.
database filename... Search the bibliographic databases
filename... For each filename if
an index filename.i created by
gindxbib(1) exists, then it will be
searched instead; each index can
cover multiple databases.
date-as-label* string string is a label expression that
specifies a string with which to
replace the D field after con-
structing the label. See the Label
expressions subsection for a
description of label expressions.
This command is useful if you do
not want explicit labels in the
reference list, but instead want to
handle any necessary disambiguation
by qualifying the date in some way.
The label used in the text would
typically be some combination of
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the author and date. In most cases
you should also use the no-label-
in-reference command. For example,
date-as-label D.+yD.y%a*D.-y
would attach a disambiguating let-
ter to the year part of the D field
in the reference.
default-database* The default database should be
searched. This is the default be-
haviour, so the negative version of
this command is more useful. refer
determines whether the default
database should be searched on the
first occasion that it needs to do
a search. Thus a no-default-data-
base command must be given before
then, in order to be effective.
discard* fields When the reference is read, fields
should be discarded; no string def-
initions for fields will be output.
Initially, fields are XYZ.
et-al* string m n Control use of et al in the evalua-
tion of @ expressions in label
expressions. If the number of
authors needed to make the author
sequence unambiguous is u and the
total number of authors is t then
the last t-u authors will be
replaced by string provided that
t-u is not less than m and t is not
less than n. The default behaviour
is
et-al " et al" 2 3
include filename Include filename and interpret the
contents as commands.
join-authors string1 string2 string3
This says how authors should be
joined together. When there are
exactly two authors, they will be
joined with string1. When there
are more than two authors, all but
the last two will be joined with
string2, and the last two authors
will be joined with string3. If
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string3 is omitted, it will default
to string1; if string2 is also
omitted it will also default to
string1. For example,
join-authors " and " ", " ",
and "
will restore the default method for
joining authors.
label-in-reference* When outputting the reference,
define the string [F to be the ref-
erence's label. This is the
default behaviour; so the negative
version of this command is more
useful.
label-in-text* For each reference output a label
in the text. The label will be
separated from the surrounding text
as described in the bracket-label
command. This is the default be-
haviour; so the negative version of
this command is more useful.
label string string is a label expression
describing how to label each refer-
ence.
separate-label-second-parts string
When merging two-part labels, sepa-
rate the second part of the second
label from the first label with
string. See the description of the
<> label expression.
move-punctuation* In the text, move any punctuation
at the end of line past the label.
It is usually a good idea to give
this command unless you are using
superscripted numbers as labels.
reverse* string Reverse the fields whose names are
in string. Each field name can be
followed by a number which says how
many such fields should be
reversed. If no number is given
for a field, all such fields will
be reversed.
search-ignore* fields While searching for keys in
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databases for which no index
exists, ignore the contents of
fields. Initially, fields XYZ are
ignored.
search-truncate* n Only require the first n characters
of keys to be given. In effect
when searching for a given key
words in the database are truncated
to the maximum of n and the length
of the key. Initially n is 6.
short-label* string string is a label expression that
specifies an alternative (usually
shorter) style of label. This is
used when the # flag is given in
the citation. When using author-
date style labels, the identity of
the author or authors is sometimes
clear from the context, and so it
may be desirable to omit the author
or authors from the label. The
short-label command will typically
be used to specify a label contain-
ing just a date and possibly a dis-
ambiguating letter.
sort* string Sort references according to
string. References will automati-
cally be accumulated. string
should be a list of field names,
each followed by a number, indicat-
ing how many fields with the name
should be used for sorting. + can
be used to indicate that all the
fields with the name should be
used. Also . can be used to indi-
cate the references should be
sorted using the (tentative) label.
(The Label expressions subsection
describes the concept of a tenta-
tive label.)
sort-adjacent-labels* Sort labels that are adjacent in
the text according to their posi-
tion in the reference list. This
command should usually be given if
the abbreviate-label-ranges command
has been given, or if the label
expression contains a <> expres-
sion. This will have no effect
unless references are being
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accumulated.
Label expressions
Label expressions can be evaluated both normally and tenta-
tively. The result of normal evaluation is used for output.
The result of tentative evaluation, called the tentative
label, is used to gather the information that normal evalua-
tion needs to disambiguate the label. Label expressions
specified by the date-as-label and short-label commands are
not evaluated tentatively. Normal and tentative evaluation
are the same for all types of expression other than @, *,
and % expressions. The description below applies to normal
evaluation, except where otherwise specified.
field
field n
The n-th part of field. If n is omitted, it defaults
to 1.
'string'
The characters in string literally.
@ All the authors joined as specified by the join-authors
command. The whole of each author's name will be used.
However, if the references are sorted by author (that
is the sort specification starts with A+), then
authors' last names will be used instead, provided that
this does not introduce ambiguity, and also an initial
subsequence of the authors may be used instead of all
the authors, again provided that this does not intro-
duce ambiguity. The use of only the last name for the
i-th author of some reference is considered to be
ambiguous if there is some other reference, such that
the first i-1 authors of the references are the same,
the i-th authors are not the same, but the i-th
authors' last names are the same. A proper initial
subsequence of the sequence of authors for some refer-
ence is considered to be ambiguous if there is a refer-
ence with some other sequence of authors which also has
that subsequence as a proper initial subsequence. When
an initial subsequence of authors is used, the remain-
ing authors are replaced by the string specified by the
et-al command; this command may also specify additional
requirements that must be met before an initial subse-
quence can be used. @ tentatively evaluates to a
canonical representation of the authors, such that
authors that compare equally for sorting purpose will
have the same representation.
%n
%a
%A
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%i
%I The serial number of the reference formatted according
to the character following the %. The serial number of
a reference is 1 plus the number of earlier references
with same tentative label as this reference. These
expressions tentatively evaluate to an empty string.
expr*
If there is another reference with the same tentative
label as this reference, then expr, otherwise an empty
string. It tentatively evaluates to an empty string.
expr+n
expr-n
The first (+) or last (-) n upper or lower case letters
or digits of expr. Troff special characters (such as
\('a) count as a single letter. Accent strings are
retained but do not count towards the total.
expr.l
expr converted to lowercase.
expr.u
expr converted to uppercase.
expr.c
expr converted to caps and small caps.
expr.r
expr reversed so that the last name is first.
expr.a
expr with first names abbreviated. Note that fields
specified in the abbreviate command are abbreviated
before any labels are evaluated. Thus .a is useful
only when you want a field to be abbreviated in a label
but not in a reference.
expr.y
The year part of expr.
expr.+y
The part of expr before the year, or the whole of expr
if it does not contain a year.
expr.-y
The part of expr after the year, or an empty string if
expr does not contain a year.
expr.n
The last name part of expr.
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expr1~expr2
expr1 except that if the last character of expr1 is -
then it will be replaced by expr2.
expr1 expr2
The concatenation of expr1 and expr2.
expr1|expr2
If expr1 is non-empty then expr1 otherwise expr2.
expr1&expr2
If expr1 is non-empty then expr2 otherwise an empty
string.
expr1?expr2:expr3
If expr1 is non-empty then expr2 otherwise expr3.
<expr>
The label is in two parts, which are separated by expr.
Two adjacent two-part labels which have the same first
part will be merged by appending the second part of the
second label onto the first label separated by the
string specified in the separate-label-second-parts
command (initially, a comma followed by a space); the
resulting label will also be a two-part label with the
same first part as before merging, and so additional
labels can be merged into it. Note that it is permis-
sible for the first part to be empty; this maybe desir-
able for expressions used in the short-label command.
(expr)
The same as expr. Used for grouping.
The above expressions are listed in order of precedence
(highest first); & and | have the same precedence.
Macro interface
Each reference starts with a call to the macro ]-. The
string [F will be defined to be the label for this refer-
ence, unless the no-label-in-reference command has been
given. There then follows a series of string definitions,
one for each field: string [X corresponds to field X. The
number register [P is set to 1 if the P field contains a
range of pages. The [T, [A and [O number registers are set
to 1 according as the T, A and O fields end with one of the
characters .?!. The [E number register will be set to 1 if
the [E string contains more than one name. The reference is
followed by a call to the ][ macro. The first argument to
this macro gives a number representing the type of the ref-
erence. If a reference contains a J field, it will be clas-
sified as type 1, otherwise if it contains a B field, it
will type 3, otherwise if it contains a G or R field it will
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be type 4, otherwise if contains a I field it will be
type 2, otherwise it will be type 0. The second argument is
a symbolic name for the type: other, journal-article, book,
article-in-book or tech-report. Groups of references that
have been accumulated or are produced by the bibliography
command are preceded by a call to the ]< macro and followed
by a call to the ]> macro.
FILES
/usr/dict/papers/Ind Default database.
file.i Index files.
ENVIRONMENT
REFER If set, overrides the default database.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
+---------------+------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+------------------+
|Availability | text/groff |
+---------------+------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+------------------+
SEE ALSO
gindxbib(1), glookbib(1), lkbib(1)
BUGS
In label expressions, <> expressions are ignored inside
.char expressions.
NOTES
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from
http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/groff/groff-1.19.2.tar.gz
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at http://www.gnu.org/soft-
ware/groff/.
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