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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 %a

    -kfield
    label fiel%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 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-
    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 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.

    exprexpr2
    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/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.