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REFER(1)		    General Commands Manual		      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	inter-
       preted 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 ac-
       cented.	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 la-
	      bel  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-la-
       bel 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	<> la-
       bel 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 pe-
				riod  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  at-
				tempt  is  made	to handle any ambiguities that
				might result from abbreviation.	 Names are ab-
				breviated before sorting and before label con-
				struction.

       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 arti-
				cles, 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...

       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 or-
				der 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  se-
				quence	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 de-
				fault 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  to-
				gether.	  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 re-
				versed.	 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 la-
				bels, 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  ac-
				cording	 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  un-
				less 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 in-
       formation that normal evaluation	needs to disambiguate the label.   La-
       bel 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	other-
       wise 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 au-
	      thors' 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 la-
	      bel 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 to-
	      wards 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 ad-
	      jacent 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/dict/papers/Ind  Default database.

       file.i		     Index files.

SEE ALSO
       indxbib(1), lookbib(1), lkbib(1)

BUGS
       In  label  expressions, <> expressions are ignored inside .char expres-
       sions.

Groff Version 1.18.1		 27 June 2001			      REFER(1)

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