From: @prism.cs.orst.edu
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Bibliographic Formats
Date: 1 Sep 92 22:08:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: CS.1992Sep01.220803.29659
Organization: Oregon State University, Computer Science Dept

In <1992Sep1.133136.4718@athena.mit.edu> gondwana@basalt.mit.edu (Matthias Imhof) writes:
>In article <1992Aug31.215407.22911@PA.dec.com> klee@wsl.dec.com (Ken Lee)  
>writes:
>>>  |> Can anybody tell me what the format is for references 
>>>  |> of the following type ?
>>>  |> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  |> %A A.H. Barr
>>>  |> %T Ray Tracing Deformed Surfaces
>>>  
>>>  This is UNIX refer format.  The "addbib" man page lists these tokens:
>>>  
>>>            %A   Author's name
>>>            %Y,Z ignored by refer
>>>  
>>>  Refer is a (somewhat) primitive set of tools for editing, sorting, and
>>>  printing bibliographies that use these tokens.  It comes free with most
>>>  UNIX systems.  Type "man refer" on a UNIX system for more info.
>>>  

  It is also possible that this is tib format (though not likely), in which
case the formatting is done using TeX specials instead of troff, and there
is a plethora of additional fields, and also abbreviations.  Also, since
refer format is rather cryptic, and has only one letter for a field, you'll
find that people tend to make things up for some fields (%F is, uh, FindKey!
yeah, that's what I'll use it for! [argh!]).

>now the new question is, is there a way to go from refer to bibtex? is there
>a tex-utility which generates a *.bib file out of a refer/addbib bibliography?

  There is a way to go from refer to bibtex.  In fact, there are at least 3
programs to do it.

  refer-to-bibtex.el: an emacs lisp comverter, 1988 Henry Kautz.

  ref2bib: an sh/sed/awk script, 1989? Peter King, supersedes J.P. Bowen.

  refer-to-bibtex: a perl script, 1992 Dana Jacobsen

  Personally, I would recommend the refer-to-bibtex perl script, as it has
numerous advantages over the others (after all, I wrote it! :-).  It 
converts names from refer to Bibtex format, has better heuristics, converts
almost all (over 500) troff characters into TeX characters (or commands if
it's not a builtin character), handles tib format, recognizes more fields,
is faster, etc.  Later versions handle european diacritical marks, and some
simple eqn constructs.  Best of all, the author is available.
  If you live in emacs, you may wish to use the refer-to-bibtex.el program,
but I doubt it's worth it as most people convert bibliographies once.

  ref2bib: 
   ftp.ai.mit.edu:/pub/refer-to-bibtex/ref2bib.shar

  refer-to-bibtex.el:
   ftp.ai.mit.edu:/pub/refer-to-bibtex/refer-to-bibtex.el
   csc-sun.math.utah.edu:/pub/tex/bib/refer-to-bibtex.el

  refer-to-bibtex:
   csc-sun.math.utah.edu:/pub/tex/bib/r2b (version 0.7.1)
   cs.orst.edu:/pub/jacobsd/refer2bibtex.pl-0.7.6

On a related note, I've written converters to handle BRS medline, RIS
(the format RIS's Reference Manager (Refman) outputs), and Focus-On (a
bi-weekly subscription service) formats into BibTeX.  All of these are
in cs.orst.edu:/pub/jacobsd/.  bibview is a program I'm working on to
handle fast searches through large (over 10,000) entry bibliographies,
something bibcard blows up on.  If anyone finds this at all useful, let
me know.
  If you have any questions, send me mail.
--
Dana Jacobsen                       I that wes in heill and gledness
jacobsd@cs.orst.edu                   am trublit now with gret sikness
jacobsd@solar.cor2.epa.gov              and feblit with infirmetie
Computer Sciences Corporation             Timor mortis conturbat me.
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex