refer man page on 4.4BSD

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   1065 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
4.4BSD logo
[printable version]

@G@REFER(@MAN1EXT@)					   @G@REFER(@MAN1EXT@)

NAME
       @g@refer - preprocess bibliographic references for groff

SYNOPSIS
       @g@refer [ -benvCPRS ] [ -an ] [ -cfields ] [ -fn ] [ -ifields ]
		[ -kfield ] [ -lm,n ] [ -pfilename ] [ -sfields ] [ -tn ]
		[ -Bfield.macro ] [ filename... ]

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 @g@soe‐
       lim(@MAN1EXT@).

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-puntuation

       -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 occurences of the A field.  The
	      order is siginificant.  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 occurence of a
       particular field in a record, only the last such field will be used.

       If accent strings are used, they	 should	 follow	 the  charater	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	 file‐
				name@INDEX_SUFFIX@	    created	    by
				@g@indxbib(@MAN1EXT@) 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
				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 keys 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.

       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 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
       @DEFAULT_INDEX@	Default database.

       file@INDEX_SUFFIX@
			Index files.

SEE ALSO
       @g@indxbib(@MAN1EXT@), @g@lookbib(@MAN1EXT@), lkbib(@MAN1EXT@)

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

Groff Version @VERSION@		    @MDATE@		   @G@REFER(@MAN1EXT@)
[top]

List of man pages available for 4.4BSD

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net