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REFER(1) General Commands Manual REFER(1)
refer - preprocess bibliographic references for groff
refer [ -benvCPRS ] [ -an ] [ -cfields ] [ -fn ] [ -ifields ]
[ -kfield ] [ -lm,n ] [ -pfilename ] [ -sfields ] [ -tn ]
[ -Bfield.macro ] [ filename... ]
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).
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.
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.
/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.
REFER If set, overrides the default database.
indxbib(1), lookbib(1), lkbib(1)
In label expressions, <> expressions are ignored inside .char
expressions.
Copyright © 1989-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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permission notice identical to this one.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
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Groff Version 1.22.3 4 November 2014 REFER(1)
Pages that refer to this page: groff(1), grog(1), indxbib(1), lkbib(1), lookbib(1), groff_man(7), groff_ms(7)