REFER(1)                                                              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... ]

       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 file-
       name... 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 refer-
       ence  that  is contained in a bibliographic database by giving a set of
       keywords that only that reference contains.  Alternatively it can spec-
       ify a reference by supplying a database record in the citation.  A com-
       bination 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 accumu-
       lated, 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 compat-
       ibility  with  Unix  refer.   It is usually more convenient to use com-
       mands.

       refer generates .lf lines so that filenames and line  numbers  in  mes-
       sages  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
       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  addi-
       tion  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 sepa-
       rated 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 supple-
       ment those specified in the reference.  When references are being accu-
       mulated and the keywords component is non-empty, then additional fields
       should be specified only on the first occasion that a particular refer-
       ence 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.  Typi-
              cally the short label is used with author-date labels  and  con-
              sists 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 cita-
       tions 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  refer-
       ences.   Just  use  a  sequence  of  citations, one for each reference.
       Don't put anything between the citations.  The labels for all the cita-
       tions  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.  Recog-
       nition  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 fol-
       lowed  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  sin-
       gle  ".   Neither # nor ; are recognized inside "s.  A line can be con-
       tinued by ending it with \; this works everywhere except after a #.

       Each command name that is marked with * has an associated negative com-
       mand  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-neg-
       ative 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 ini-
                                tial 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, 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.  Accumu-
                                lated references will be written out  whenever
                                a reference of the form

                                       .[
                                       $LIST$
                                       .]

                                is encountered, after all input files hve been
                                processed, and whenever  .R1  line  is  recog-
                                nized.

       annotate* field string   field is an annotation; print it at the end of
                                the reference as a paragraph 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 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 com-
                                mand 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 immedi-
                                ately 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 cre-
                                ated by indxbib(1) exists,  then  it  will  be
                                searched  instead; each index can cover multi-
                                ple 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 expres-
                                sions  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  typi-
                                cally  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 ver-
                                sion 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  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 num-
                                ber  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 ver-
                                sion 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 surround-
                                ing  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 contain-
                                ing just a date and possibly a  disambiguating
                                letter.

       sort* string             Sort  references  according to string.  Refer-
                                ences  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 sort-
                                ing.  + 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  tenta-
       tive  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 com-
       mands are not evaluated tentatively.  Normal and  tentative  evaluation
       are the same for all types of expression other than @, *, and % expres-
       sions.  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 ambigu-
              ity.  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 sub-
              sequence.  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 require-
              ments  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 tenta-
              tively evaluates to an empty string.

       expr+n
       expr-n The first (+) or last (-) n upper or lower case letters or  dig-
              its 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 num-
       ber 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 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/share/dict/papers/Ind  Default database.

       file.i                      Index files.

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  expres-
       sions.



Groff Version 1.19.2            6 February 2006                       REFER(1)
