1REFER(1) General Commands Manual REFER(1)
2
6 refer - preprocess bibliographic references for groff
7
9 refer [-benCPRS] [-a n] [-c fields] [-f n] [-i fields] [-k field]
10 [-l m,n] [-p filename] [-s fields] [-t n] -B field.macro [file
11 ...]
12 refer --help
14 refer -v
16 refer --version
17
19 This file documents the GNU version of refer, which is part of the
20 groff document formatting system. refer copies the contents of file‐
21 name... to the standard output, except that lines between .[ and .] are
22 interpreted as citations, and lines between .R1 and .R2 are interpreted
23 as commands about how citations are to be processed.
24 Each citation specifies a reference. The citation can specify a refer‐
26 ence that is contained in a bibliographic database by giving a set of
27 keywords that only that reference contains. Alternatively it can spec‐
28 ify a reference by supplying a database record in the citation. A com‐
29 bination of these alternatives is also possible.
30 For each citation, refer can produce a mark in the text. This mark
32 consists of some label which can be separated from the text and from
33 other labels in various ways. For each reference it also outputs groff
34 commands that can be used by a macro package to produce a formatted
35 reference for each citation. The output of refer must therefore be
36 processed using a suitable macro package. The -ms and -me macros are
37 both suitable. The commands to format a citation's reference can be
38 output immediately after the citation, or the references may be accumu‐
39 lated, and the commands output at some later point. If the references
40 are accumulated, then multiple citations of the same reference will
41 produce a single formatted reference.
42 The interpretation of lines between .R1 and .R2 as commands is a new
44 feature of GNU refer. Documents making use of this feature can still
45 be processed by Unix refer just by adding the lines
46 .de R1
48 .ig R2
49 ..
50 to the beginning of the document. This will cause troff to ignore ev‐
51 erything between .R1 and .R2. The effect of some commands can also be
52 achieved by options. These options are supported mainly for compati‐
53 bility with Unix refer. It is usually more convenient to use commands.
54 refer generates .lf lines so that filenames and line numbers in mes‐
56 sages produced by commands that read refer output will be correct; it
57 also interprets lines beginning with .lf so that filenames and line
58 numbers in the messages and .lf lines that it produces will be accurate
59 even if the input has been preprocessed by a command such as soelim(1).
60
62 Whitespace is permitted between a command-line option and its argument.
63 Most options are equivalent to commands (for a description of these
65 commands, see subsection “Commands” below).
66 -b no-label-in-text; no-label-in-reference
68 -e accumulate
70 -n no-default-database
72 -C compatible
74 -P move-punctuation
76 -S label "(A.n|Q) ', ' (D.y|D)"; bracket-label " (" ) "; "
78 -an reverse An
80 -cfields
82 capitalize fields
83 -fn label %n
85 -ifields
87 search-ignore fields
88 -k label L~%a
90 -kfield
92 label field~%a
93 -l label A.nD.y%a
95 -lm label A.n+mD.y%a
97 -l,n label A.nD.y-n%a
99 -lm,n label A.n+mD.y-n%a
101 -pfilename
103 database filename
104 -sspec sort spec
106 -tn search-truncate n
108 These options are equivalent to the following commands with the addi‐
110 tion that the filenames specified on the command line are processed as
111 if they were arguments to the bibliography command instead of in the
112 normal way:
113 -B annotate X AP; no-label-in-reference
115 -Bfield.macro
117 annotate field macro; no-label-in-reference
118 The following options have no equivalent commands:
120 -v Print the version number.
122 -R Don't recognize lines beginning with .R1/.R2.
124
126 Bibliographic databases
127 The bibliographic database is a text file consisting of records sepa‐
128 rated by one or more blank lines. Within each record fields start with
129 a % at the beginning of a line. Each field has a one character name
130 that immediately follows the %. It is best to use only upper and lower
131 case letters for the names of fields. The name of the field should be
132 followed by exactly one space, and then by the contents of the field.
133 Empty fields are ignored. The conventional meaning of each field is as
134 follows:
135 %A The name of an author. If the name contains a title such as Jr.
137 at the end, it should be separated from the last name by a
138 comma. There can be multiple occurrences of the %A field. The
139 order is significant. It is a good idea always to supply an %A
140 field or a %Q field.
141 %B For an article that is part of a book, the title of the book.
143 %C The place (city) of publication.
145 %D The date of publication. The year should be specified in full.
147 If the month is specified, the name rather than the number of
148 the month should be used, but only the first three letters are
149 required. It is a good idea always to supply a %D field; if the
150 date is unknown, a value such as in press or unknown can be
151 used.
152 %E For an article that is part of a book, the name of an editor of
154 the book. Where the work has editors and no authors, the names
155 of the editors should be given as %A fields and , (ed) or
156 , (eds) should be appended to the last author.
157 %G US Government ordering number.
159 %I The publisher (issuer).
161 %J For an article in a journal, the name of the journal.
163 %K Keywords to be used for searching.
165 %L Label.
167 %N Journal issue number.
169 %O Other information. This is usually printed at the end of the
171 reference.
172 %P Page number. A range of pages can be specified as m-n.
174 %Q The name of the author, if the author is not a person. This
176 will only be used if there are no %A fields. There can only be
177 one %Q field.
178 %R Technical report number.
180 %S Series name.
182 %T Title. For an article in a book or journal, this should be the
184 title of the article.
185 %V Volume number of the journal or book.
187 %X Annotation.
189 For all fields except %A and %E, if there is more than one occurrence
191 of a particular field in a record, only the last such field will be
192 used.
193 If accent strings are used, they should follow the character to be ac‐
195 cented. This means that the AM macro must be used with the -ms macros.
196 Accent strings should not be quoted: use one \ rather than two.
197 Citations
199 The format of a citation is
200 .[opening-text
201 flags keywords
202 fields
203 .]closing-text
204 The opening-text, closing-text, and flags components are optional.
206 Only one of the keywords and fields components need be specified.
207 The keywords component says to search the bibliographic databases for a
209 reference that contains all the words in keywords. It is an error if
210 more than one reference if found.
211 The fields components specifies additional fields to replace or supple‐
213 ment those specified in the reference. When references are being accu‐
214 mulated and the keywords component is non-empty, then additional fields
215 should be specified only on the first occasion that a particular refer‐
216 ence is cited, and will apply to all citations of that reference.
217 The opening-text and closing-text component specifies strings to be
219 used to bracket the label instead of the strings specified in the
220 bracket-label command. If either of these components is non-empty, the
221 strings specified in the bracket-label command will not be used; this
222 behaviour can be altered using the [ and ] flags. Note that leading
223 and trailing spaces are significant for these components.
224 The flags component is a list of non-alphanumeric characters each of
226 which modifies the treatment of this particular citation. Unix refer
227 will treat these flags as part of the keywords and so will ignore them
228 since they are non-alphanumeric. The following flags are currently
229 recognized:
230 # This says to use the label specified by the short-label command,
232 instead of that specified by the label command. If no short la‐
233 bel has been specified, the normal label will be used. Typi‐
234 cally the short label is used with author-date labels and con‐
235 sists of only the date and possibly a disambiguating letter; the
236 # is supposed to be suggestive of a numeric type of label.
237 [ Precede opening-text with the first string specified in the
239 bracket-label command.
240 ] Follow closing-text with the second string specified in the
242 bracket-label command.
243 One advantages of using the [ and ] flags rather than including the
245 brackets in opening-text and closing-text is that you can change the
246 style of bracket used in the document just by changing the bracket-la‐
247 bel command. Another advantage is that sorting and merging of cita‐
248 tions will not necessarily be inhibited if the flags are used.
249 If a label is to be inserted into the text, it will be attached to the
251 line preceding the .[ line. If there is no such line, then an extra
252 line will be inserted before the .[ line and a warning will be given.
253 There is no special notation for making a citation to multiple refer‐
255 ences. Just use a sequence of citations, one for each reference.
256 Don't put anything between the citations. The labels for all the cita‐
257 tions will be attached to the line preceding the first citation. The
258 labels may also be sorted or merged. See the description of the <> la‐
259 bel expression, and of the sort-adjacent-labels and abbreviate-label-
260 ranges command. A label will not be merged if its citation has a non-
261 empty opening-text or closing-text. However, the labels for a citation
262 using the ] flag and without any closing-text immediately followed by a
263 citation using the [ flag and without any opening-text may be sorted
264 and merged even though the first citation's opening-text or the second
265 citation's closing-text is non-empty. (If you wish to prevent this
266 just make the first citation's closing-text \&.)
267 Commands
269 Commands are contained between lines starting with .R1 and .R2. Recog‐
270 nition of these lines can be prevented by the -R option. When a .R1
271 line is recognized any accumulated references are flushed out. Neither
272 .R1 nor .R2 lines, nor anything between them is output.
273 Commands are separated by newlines or ;s. # introduces a comment that
275 extends to the end of the line (but does not conceal the newline).
276 Each command is broken up into words. Words are separated by spaces or
277 tabs. A word that begins with " extends to the next " that is not fol‐
278 lowed by another ". If there is no such " the word extends to the end
279 of the line. Pairs of " in a word beginning with " collapse to a sin‐
280 gle ". Neither # nor ; are recognized inside "s. A line can be con‐
281 tinued by ending it with \; this works everywhere except after a #.
282 Each command name that is marked with * has an associated negative com‐
284 mand no-name that undoes the effect of name. For example, the no-sort
285 command specifies that references should not be sorted. The negative
286 commands take no arguments.
287 In the following description each argument must be a single word; field
289 is used for a single upper or lower case letter naming a field; fields
290 is used for a sequence of such letters; m and n are used for a non-neg‐
291 ative numbers; string is used for an arbitrary string; filename is used
292 for the name of a file.
293 abbreviate* fields string1 string2 string3 string4
295 Abbreviate the first names of fields. An initial letter will be
296 separated from another initial letter by string1, from the last
297 name by string2, and from anything else (such as a von or de) by
298 string3. These default to a period followed by a space. In a
299 hyphenated first name, the initial of the first part of the name
300 will be separated from the hyphen by string4; this defaults to a
301 period. No attempt is made to handle any ambiguities that might
302 result from abbreviation. Names are abbreviated before sorting
303 and before label construction.
304 abbreviate-label-ranges* string
306 Three or more adjacent labels that refer to consecutive refer‐
307 ences will be abbreviated to a label consisting of the first la‐
308 bel, followed by string followed by the last label. This is
309 mainly useful with numeric labels. If string is omitted it de‐
310 faults to -.
311 accumulate*
313 Accumulate references instead of writing out each reference as
314 it is encountered. Accumulated references will be written out
315 whenever a reference of the form
316 .[
318 $LIST$
319 .]
320 is encountered, after all input files have been processed, and
322 whenever .R1 line is recognized.
323 annotate* field string
325 field is an annotation; print it at the end of the reference as
326 a paragraph preceded by the line
327 .string
329 If string is omitted it will default to AP; if field is also
331 omitted it will default to X. Only one field can be an annota‐
332 tion.
333 articles string...
335 string... are definite or indefinite articles, and should be ig‐
336 nored at the beginning of T fields when sorting. Initially,
337 the, a and an are recognized as articles.
338 bibliography filename...
340 Write out all the references contained in the bibliographic
341 databases filename... This command should come last in a
342 .R1/.R2 block.
343 bracket-label string1 string2 string3
345 In the text, bracket each label with string1 and string2. An
346 occurrence of string2 immediately followed by string1 will be
347 turned into string3. The default behaviour is
348 bracket-label \*([. \*(.] ", "
350 capitalize fields
352 Convert fields to caps and small caps.
353 compatible*
355 Recognize .R1 and .R2 even when followed by a character other
356 than space or newline.
357 database filename...
359 Search the bibliographic databases filename... For each file‐
360 name if an index filename.i created by indxbib(1) exists, then
361 it will be searched instead; each index can cover multiple data‐
362 bases.
363 date-as-label* string
365 string is a label expression that specifies a string with which
366 to replace the D field after constructing the label. See sub‐
367 section “Label expressions” below for a description of label ex‐
368 pressions. This command is useful if you do not want explicit
369 labels in the reference list, but instead want to handle any
370 necessary disambiguation by qualifying the date in some way.
371 The label used in the text would typically be some combination
372 of the author and date. In most cases you should also use the
373 no-label-in-reference command. For example,
374 date-as-label D.+yD.y%a*D.-y
376 would attach a disambiguating letter to the year part of the D
378 field in the reference.
379 default-database*
381 The default database should be searched. This is the default
382 behaviour, so the negative version of this command is more use‐
383 ful. refer determines whether the default database should be
384 searched on the first occasion that it needs to do a search.
385 Thus a no-default-database command must be given before then, in
386 order to be effective.
387 discard* fields
389 When the reference is read, fields should be discarded; no
390 string definitions for fields will be output. Initially, fields
391 are XYZ.
392 et-al* string m n
394 Control use of et al in the evaluation of @ expressions in label
395 expressions. If the number of authors needed to make the author
396 sequence unambiguous is u and the total number of authors is t
397 then the last t-u authors will be replaced by string provided
398 that t-u is not less than m and t is not less than n. The de‐
399 fault behaviour is
400 et-al " et al" 2 3
402 include filename
404 Include filename and interpret the contents as commands.
405 join-authors string1 string2 string3
407 This says how authors should be joined together. When there are
408 exactly two authors, they will be joined with string1. When
409 there are more than two authors, all but the last two will be
410 joined with string2, and the last two authors will be joined
411 with string3. If string3 is omitted, it will default to
412 string1; if string2 is also omitted it will also default to
413 string1. For example,
414 join-authors " and " ", " ", and "
416 will restore the default method for joining authors.
418 label-in-reference*
420 When outputting the reference, define the string [F to be the
421 reference's label. This is the default behaviour; so the nega‐
422 tive version of this command is more useful.
423 label-in-text*
425 For each reference output a label in the text. The label will
426 be separated from the surrounding text as described in the
427 bracket-label command. This is the default behaviour; so the
428 negative version of this command is more useful.
429 label string
431 string is a label expression describing how to label each refer‐
432 ence.
433 separate-label-second-parts string
435 When merging two-part labels, separate the second part of the
436 second label from the first label with string. See the descrip‐
437 tion of the <> label expression.
438 move-punctuation*
440 In the text, move any punctuation at the end of line past the
441 label. It is usually a good idea to give this command unless
442 you are using superscripted numbers as labels.
443 reverse* string
445 Reverse the fields whose names are in string. Each field name
446 can be followed by a number which says how many such fields
447 should be reversed. If no number is given for a field, all such
448 fields will be reversed.
449 search-ignore* fields
451 While searching for keys in databases for which no index exists,
452 ignore the contents of fields. Initially, fields XYZ are ig‐
453 nored.
454 search-truncate* n
456 Only require the first n characters of keys to be given. In ef‐
457 fect when searching for a given key words in the database are
458 truncated to the maximum of n and the length of the key. Ini‐
459 tially n is 6.
460 short-label* string
462 string is a label expression that specifies an alternative (usu‐
463 ally shorter) style of label. This is used when the # flag is
464 given in the citation. When using author-date style labels, the
465 identity of the author or authors is sometimes clear from the
466 context, and so it may be desirable to omit the author or au‐
467 thors from the label. The short-label command will typically be
468 used to specify a label containing just a date and possibly a
469 disambiguating letter.
470 sort* string
472 Sort references according to string. References will automati‐
473 cally be accumulated. string should be a list of field names,
474 each followed by a number, indicating how many fields with the
475 name should be used for sorting. + can be used to indicate that
476 all the fields with the name should be used. Also . can be used
477 to indicate the references should be sorted using the (tenta‐
478 tive) label. (Subsection “Label expressions” below describes
479 the concept of a tentative label.)
480 sort-adjacent-labels*
482 Sort labels that are adjacent in the text according to their po‐
483 sition in the reference list. This command should usually be
484 given if the abbreviate-label-ranges command has been given, or
485 if the label expression contains a <> expression. This will
486 have no effect unless references are being accumulated.
487 Label expressions
489 Label expressions can be evaluated both normally and tentatively. The
490 result of normal evaluation is used for output. The result of tenta‐
491 tive evaluation, called the tentative label, is used to gather the in‐
492 formation that normal evaluation needs to disambiguate the label. La‐
493 bel expressions specified by the date-as-label and short-label commands
494 are not evaluated tentatively. Normal and tentative evaluation are the
495 same for all types of expression other than @, *, and % expressions.
496 The description below applies to normal evaluation, except where other‐
497 wise specified.
498 field
500 field n
501 The n-th part of field. If n is omitted, it defaults to 1.
502 'string'
504 The characters in string literally.
505 @ All the authors joined as specified by the join-authors command.
507 The whole of each author's name will be used. However, if the
508 references are sorted by author (that is the sort specification
509 starts with A+), then authors last names will be used instead,
510 provided that this does not introduce ambiguity, and also an
511 initial subsequence of the authors may be used instead of all
512 the authors, again provided that this does not introduce ambigu‐
513 ity. The use of only the last name for the i-th author of some
514 reference is considered to be ambiguous if there is some other
515 reference, such that the first i-1 authors of the references are
516 the same, the i-th authors are not the same, but the i-th au‐
517 thors last names are the same. A proper initial subsequence of
518 the sequence of authors for some reference is considered to be
519 ambiguous if there is a reference with some other sequence of
520 authors which also has that subsequence as a proper initial sub‐
521 sequence. When an initial subsequence of authors is used, the
522 remaining authors are replaced by the string specified by the
523 et-al command; this command may also specify additional require‐
524 ments that must be met before an initial subsequence can be
525 used. @ tentatively evaluates to a canonical representation of
526 the authors, such that authors that compare equally for sorting
527 purpose will have the same representation.
528 %n
530 %a
531 %A
532 %i
533 %I The serial number of the reference formatted according to the
534 character following the %. The serial number of a reference
535 is 1 plus the number of earlier references with same tentative
536 label as this reference. These expressions tentatively evaluate
537 to an empty string.
538 expr* If there is another reference with the same tentative label as
540 this reference, then expr, otherwise an empty string. It tenta‐
541 tively evaluates to an empty string.
542 expr+n
544 expr-n The first (+) or last (-) n upper or lower case letters or dig‐
545 its of expr. Troff special characters (such as \('a) count as a
546 single letter. Accent strings are retained but do not count to‐
547 wards the total.
548 expr.l expr converted to lowercase.
550 expr.u expr converted to uppercase.
552 expr.c expr converted to caps and small caps.
554 expr.r expr reversed so that the last name is first.
556 expr.a expr with first names abbreviated. Note that fields specified
558 in the abbreviate command are abbreviated before any labels are
559 evaluated. Thus .a is useful only when you want a field to be
560 abbreviated in a label but not in a reference.
561 expr.y The year part of expr.
563 expr.+y
565 The part of expr before the year, or the whole of expr if it
566 does not contain a year.
567 expr.-y
569 The part of expr after the year, or an empty string if expr does
570 not contain a year.
571 expr.n The last name part of expr.
573 expr1~expr2
575 expr1 except that if the last character of expr1 is - then it
576 will be replaced by expr2.
577 expr1 expr2
579 The concatenation of expr1 and expr2.
580 expr1|expr2
582 If expr1 is non-empty then expr1 otherwise expr2.
583 expr1&expr2
585 If expr1 is non-empty then expr2 otherwise an empty string.
586 expr1?expr2:expr3
588 If expr1 is non-empty then expr2 otherwise expr3.
589 <expr> The label is in two parts, which are separated by expr. Two ad‐
591 jacent two-part labels which have the same first part will be
592 merged by appending the second part of the second label onto the
593 first label separated by the string specified in the separate-
594 label-second-parts command (initially, a comma followed by a
595 space); the resulting label will also be a two-part label with
596 the same first part as before merging, and so additional labels
597 can be merged into it. Note that it is permissible for the
598 first part to be empty; this maybe desirable for expressions
599 used in the short-label command.
600 (expr) The same as expr. Used for grouping.
602 The above expressions are listed in order of precedence (highest
604 first); & and | have the same precedence.
605 Macro interface
607 Each reference starts with a call to the macro ]-. The string [F will
608 be defined to be the label for this reference, unless the no-label-in-
609 reference command has been given. There then follows a series of
610 string definitions, one for each field: string [X corresponds to field
611 X. The number register [P is set to 1 if the P field contains a range
612 of pages. The [T, [A and [O number registers are set to 1 according as
613 the T, A and O fields end with one of the characters .?!. The [E num‐
614 ber register will be set to 1 if the [E string contains more than one
615 name. The reference is followed by a call to the ][ macro. The first
616 argument to this macro gives a number representing the type of the ref‐
617 erence. If a reference contains a J field, it will be classified as
618 type 1, otherwise if it contains a B field, it will type 3, otherwise
619 if it contains a G or R field it will be type 4, otherwise if it con‐
620 tains an I field it will be type 2, otherwise it will be type 0. The
621 second argument is a symbolic name for the type: other, journal-arti‐
622 cle, book, article-in-book or tech-report. Groups of references that
623 have been accumulated or are produced by the bibliography command are
624 preceded by a call to the ]< macro and followed by a call to the ]>
625 macro.
626
628 /usr/dict/papers/Ind
629 Default database.
630 file.i Index files.
632 refer uses temporary files. See the groff(1) man page for details
634 where such files are created.
635
637 REFER If set, overrides the default database.
638
640 indxbib(1), lookbib(1), lkbib(1)
641
643 In label expressions, <> expressions are ignored inside .char expres‐
644 sions.
645groff 1.22.4 20 January 2022 REFER(1)