refer(1)
NAME
refer - preprocess bibliographic references for groff
SYNOPSIS
refer [ -benvCPRS ] [ -an ] [ -cfields ] [ -fn ] [ -ifields ]
[ -kfield ] [ -lm,n ] [ -pfilename ] [ -sfields ] [ -tn ]
[ -Bfield.macro ] [ filename... ]
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 specify a
reference that is contained in a bibliographic database by giving a set
of keywords that only that reference contains. Alternatively it can
specify a reference by supplying 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 reference 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 single 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 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 soelim(1).
OPTIONS
It is possible to have whitespace between a command line option and its
parameter.
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
-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 bibliography 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 occurrences 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.
%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
.]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 references 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-alphanumeric. 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 command. 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 document 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.
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 multiple
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. However, 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 references 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 arguments.
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 letters; 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.
abbreviate* fields string1 string2 string3 string4
Abbreviate the first names of fields. An
initial letter will be separated from another
initial letter 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 abbreviation. Names are
abbreviated before sorting and before label
construction.
abbreviate-label-ranges* string
Three or more adjacent labels that refer to
consecutive references will be abbreviated to
a label consisting of the first label,
followed 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 references will be written out
whenever a reference of the form
.[
$LIST$
.]
is encountered, after all input files have
been processed, and whenever .R1 line is
recognized.
annotate* field string field is an annotation; print it at the end of
the reference as a paragraph preceded by the
line
.string
If string is omitted it will default to AP; if
field is also omitted it will default to X.
Only one field can be an annotation.
articles string... string... are definite or indefinite 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 contained in the
bibliographic databases 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 behaviour 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 indxbib(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
constructing 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 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 letter to the
year part of the D field in the reference.
default-database* The default database should be searched. This
is the default behaviour, 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-
database command must be given before then, in
order to be effective.
discard* fields When the reference is read, fields should be
discarded; no string definitions for fields
will be output. Initially, fields are XYZ.
et-al* string m n Control use of et al in the evaluation 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
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 reference'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 behaviour;
so the negative version of this command is
more useful.
label string string is a label expression describing how to
label each reference.
separate-label-second-parts string
When merging two-part labels, separate 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 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
containing just a date and possibly a
disambiguating letter.
sort* string Sort references according to string.
References will automatically be accumulated.
string should be a list of field names, each
followed by a number, indicating 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 indicate the references
should be sorted using the (tentative) label.
(The Label expressions subsection describes
the concept of a tentative label.)
sort-adjacent-labels* Sort labels that are adjacent in the text
according to their position 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
<> expression. This will have no effect
unless references are being accumulated.
Label expressions
Label expressions can be evaluated both normally and tentatively. 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 evaluation 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 introduce
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 reference is
considered to be ambiguous if there is a reference 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 remaining 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 subsequence 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
%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.
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 permissible for the
first part to be empty; this maybe desirable 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 reference, 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 reference. If a reference contains a J field, it will be
classified 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 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. refer uses temporary files. See the groff(1) man page for details where such files are created.
ENVIRONMENT
REFER If set, overrides the default database.
SEE ALSO
indxbib(1), lookbib(1), lkbib(1)
BUGS
In label expressions, <> expressions are ignored inside .char expressions.
COPYING
Copyright 1989-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be included in translations approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original English.
Opportunity
Personal Opportunity - Free software gives you access to billions of dollars of software at no cost. Use this software for your business, personal use or to develop a profitable skill. Access to source code provides access to a level of capabilities/information that companies protect though copyrights. Open source is a core component of the Internet and it is available to you. Leverage the billions of dollars in resources and capabilities to build a career, establish a business or change the world. The potential is endless for those who understand the opportunity.
Business Opportunity - Goldman Sachs, IBM and countless large corporations are leveraging open source to reduce costs, develop products and increase their bottom lines. Learn what these companies know about open source and how open source can give you the advantage.
Free Software
Free Software provides computer programs and capabilities at no cost but more importantly, it provides the freedom to run, edit, contribute to, and share the software. The importance of free software is a matter of access, not price. Software at no cost is a benefit but ownership rights to the software and source code is far more significant.
Free Office Software - The Libre Office suite provides top desktop productivity tools for free. This includes, a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation engine, drawing and flowcharting, database and math applications. Libre Office is available for Linux or Windows.
Free Books
The Free Books Library is a collection of thousands of the most popular public domain books in an online readable format. The collection includes great classical literature and more recent works where the U.S. copyright has expired. These books are yours to read and use without restrictions.
Source Code - Want to change a program or know how it works? Open Source provides the source code for its programs so that anyone can use, modify or learn how to write those programs themselves. Visit the GNU source code repositories to download the source.
Education
Study at Harvard, Stanford or MIT - Open edX provides free online courses from Harvard, MIT, Columbia, UC Berkeley and other top Universities. Hundreds of courses for almost all major subjects and course levels. Open edx also offers some paid courses and selected certifications.
Linux Manual Pages - A man or manual page is a form of software documentation found on Linux/Unix operating systems. Topics covered include computer programs (including library and system calls), formal standards and conventions, and even abstract concepts.
