BibTeX Format Description
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BibTeX Format Description
BibTeX-files may contain four different types of entries:
@STRING
defines abbreviations in the form of
@string { foo = "Mrs. Foo" }
which can later be used in a tag like this
author = foo # " and Mr. Bar"
@PREAMBLE
defines how special text should be formatted.
@COMMENT
for comments not taken in regard by BibTeX.
Entries
each declaring a single reference to a type of publication, for example:
@article
@book
@inproceedings
etc.
A BibTeX entry consists of the type (the word after @), a citation-key and a number of tags
which define various characteristics of the specific BibTeX entry.
Among those
tags can be for example: author, title, year, etc. Some tags are mandatory for certain
types of BibTeX entries, some are optional.
There is a set of standard-tags existing, which can
be interpreted by BibTeX or third-party tools. Those which are unknown are ignored by BibTeX, thus can be used to store additional information without interfering with
the final outcome of a document.
@misc{ patashnik-bibtexing,
author = "Oren Patashnik",
title = "BIBTEXing",
year = "1988" }
Tags
A BibTeX tag is specified by its name followed by an equals-sign and the content. The tag's
name is not case-sensitive. The content needs to be enclosed by either curly braces
or quotation-marks. Which form of enclosure is used is depending on the user's taste,
and both can be applied together in a single BibTeX entry, but there is one difference between
those two methods: When quotation-marks are used, string concatenation using # is
possible, but not when braces are used.
For example, the following statements are equal:
Title = {{Bib}\TeX}
Title = "{Bib}\TeX"
Title = "{Bib}" # "\TeX"
It is important to know that abbreviations previously defined using the @string command
can only be used in conjunction with other strings using the string concatenation.
@string{btx = "{\textsc{Bib}\TeX}"}
Title = btx # "ing"
Numbers can either be enclosed by braces or quotation-marks, but can stand alone.
Tags are separated by commas; if not, the BibTeX parser will produce an error. The last tag can be
finished with a comma, although not necessarily.
@article{mrx05,
auTHor = "Mr. X",
Title = {Something Great},
publisher = "nob" # "ody",
YEAR = 2005,
is a correct BibTeX entry.