--- name: "nbibtex" section: "1" platform: "linux" package: "nbibtex" version: "0.9.18-13" release: "Debian 11 (Bullseye)" platforms: ["linux"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/nbibtex" --- # nbibtex(1) make a bibliography for LaTeX ## NAME nbibtex - make a bibliography for LaTeX ## SYNOPSIS **nbibtex** \[*options*\] *auxname*\[**.aux**\] \[*bibname*...\] ## DESCRIPTION NbibTeX is a drop-in replacement for BibTeX. It reads the top-level auxiliary (*.aux*) file that was output during the running of [**latex**(1)](/latex/1.md) or [**tex**(1)](/tex/1.md) and creates a bibliography (*.bbl*) file that will be incorporated into the document on subsequent runs of LaTeX or TeX. NbibTeX looks up, in bibliographic database (*.bib*) files specified by the \\bibliography command, the entries specified by the \\cite and \\nocite commands in the LaTeX or TeX source file. The association of \\cite command with *.bib* entry is made by a simple query language described below. NbibTeX formats the information from the *.bib* entries according to instructions in a bibliography style (*.nbs*) file (specified by the \\bibliographystyle command, and it outputs the results to the *.bbl* file. If the optional *bibname*s are used, NbibTeX looks in the named bibliographies *instead* of those specified by the \\bibliography command. A *bibname* without a slash (/) character means the same thing it would mean in a \\bibliographystyle command: it is looked up according to the rules of BibTeX. A *bibname with* a slash character is taken to be the absolute or relative pathname of a *.bib* file. Explicit *bibname*s can be used with the **-bib** and **-o** options to make a paper-specific *.bib* file from larger *.bib* files. The LaTeX manual explains what a LaTeX source file must contain to work with NbibTeX. Appendix B of the manual describes the format of the *.bib* files. The \`NbibTeXing' document describes extensions and details of this format, and it gives other useful hints for using NbibTeX. ## OPTIONS - **-min-crossrefs=***number* The **-min-crossrefs** option defines the minimum number of **crossref** required for automatic inclusion of the crossref'd entry on the citation list; the default is 2. - **-terse** Accepted for backward compatibility with BibTeX; NbibTeX is terse by default. - **-permissive** Enables NbibTeX to continue working even when some of the *.bib* files mentioned in the \\bibliography command are missing. Also tells NbibTeX not to object if duplicate entries are found in multiple *.bib* files. - **-strict** Tells NbibTeX to complain about all irregularities it spots in any *.bib* file it parses. By default, NbibTeX (like BibTeX) complains only about entries it actually intends to use. - **-o** *file* Writes the bibliography to *file* instead of to the default *auxname***.bbl***.* If *file* is **-**, writes to standard output. - **-bib** Instead of writing a bibliography for use by LaTeX, writes exactly those NbibTeX entries needed by *auxname.* Useful for making paper-specific *.bib* files. - **-help** Emit a short help message and exit. - **-version** Emit version information and exit. ## EXAMPLES To make a normal bibliography for file **paper.tex:** - **nbibtex paper** To use the personal *.bib* file **personal.bib** to make a paper-specific bibliography for file **paper.tex**, which should use the command **\\bibliography{paper}**: - **nbibtex -o paper.bib -bib paper personal** The file **personal.bib** should be found on the usual BIBINPUTS path. To extend the bibliography **paper.bib** by filling in missing entries from **personal.bib**: - **nbibtex -permissive -o paper.bib -bib paper paper personal** ## QUERY LANGUAGE To specify a paper you wish to cite, classic BibTeX requires an arbitrary key. The advantage of NbibTeX is that you cite a paper by the *contents* of the NbibTeX entry. - The citation consists of a sequence of one or more *constraints* separated by colons. A constraint may be empty. - A nonempty constraint is of the form *key***=***words,* where *key* is the name of a field in the NbibTeX entry and *words* is a sequence of one or more words separated by dashes. The contraint is satisfied if every word in *words* is found in the field named by *key.* (The *key* may also be **\[type\]**, which matches against the type of the entry, or **\***, which looks for *words* in *any* field.) For example, the following queries might match an entry for a useful source on arithmetic: - **author=knuth:series=art-programming:volume=2**\ **author=knuth:title=seminumerical:year=1981** As a convenience, keys may be defaulted in up to three constraints. In the first constraint, the default key is **author** (or if there is no author, **editor**). In the second constraint, the default key is **year** if *words* is all digits, and is **title** otherwise. In the third constraint, the default key is **year** if *words* is all digits, and is **\[type\]** otherwise. So for example, we could have written - **knuth:seminumerical:1981** To match a word in *words*, ΒX uses the Boyer-Moore string-matching algorithm, so longer words are usually faster. NbibTeX's query language can be used on the command line by [**nbibfind**(1)](/nbibfind/1.md). ## NBIBTEX STYLES AND COMPATIBILITY WITH BibTeX Like BibTeX, NbibTeX supports a variety of "styles" of bibliography. Each style is defined by a program written in Lua, using additional primitives suitable to construction of bibliographies. NbibTeX provides the three standard styles in a form suitable for use with the **natbib** package. Two of these styles (**abbrvnat** and **unsrtnat**) are completely compatible with the corresponding BibTeX styles; the third style (**plainnat**) has been changed to more closely follow the Chicago Manual of Style. A compatible version is available as style **plainnatc**. Additional styles may be created by writing new Lua code; for example, an author wishing to create a style called **mcbride** would put a file called **mcbride.nbs** (for New BibTeX Style) in the directory **/usr/share/nbibtex**. For guidance on what goes into such a file, consult the other files in that directory and the literate source code for NbibTeX. ## ENVIRONMENT For *.bib* files, NbibTeX searches the directories in the path defined by the BIBINPUTS environment variable if that is set, otherwise the default. For details of the searching, see [**tex**(1)](/tex/1.md) and [**kpsewhich**(1)](/kpsewhich/1.md). No special searching is done for the *.aux* file. ## FILES - */usr/share/nbibtex/\*.nbs* New bibliography style files. ## BUGS Although I have made some effort in this direction, compatibility with BibTeX does not extend to **.bib** files containing non-ASCII characters. ## SEE ALSO [**nbibfind**(1)](/nbibfind/1.md), [**latex**(1)](/latex/1.md), [**tex**(1)](/tex/1.md), [**kpsewhich**(1)](/kpsewhich/1.md), [**bibtex**(1)](/bibtex/1.md).\ Leslie Lamport, *LaTeX - A Document Preparation System*, Addison-Wesley, 1985, ISBN 0-201-15790-X.\ The NbibTeX home page at **http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~nr/nbibtex**.\ The Lua home page at **http://www.lua.org**. ## AUTHOR Norman Ramsey, Harvard University.