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 ς extends to the next ς that is not followed by another ς. If there is no such ς the word extends to the end of the line. Pairs of ς in a word beginning with ς collapse to a single ς. Neither # nor ; are recognized inside ςs. 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
is encountered, after all input files hve 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
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 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
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.