BibTeX is both a bibliographic flat-file database file format and a software program for processing these files to produce lists of references (citations). The BibTeX file format is a widely used standard with broad support by reference management software. The BibTeX program comes bundled with the LaTeX document preparation system, and is not available as a stand-alone program. Within this typesetting system its name is styled as. The name is a portmanteau of the word bibliography and the name of the TeX typesetting software. BibTeX was created by Oren Patashnik in 1985. No updates were published between February 1988 and March 2010, when the package was updated to improve URL printing and clarify the license. There are various reimplementations of the program. The purpose of BibTeX is to make it easy to cite sources in a consistent manner, by separating bibliographic information from the presentation of this information, similarly to the separation of content and presentation/style supported by LaTeX itself.

Processor

The processor program works with several specific files to produce the reference list and format the citations. In the words of the program's author Oren Patashnik, the processor works as follows: It takes as input: BibTeX chooses from the file(s) only those entries specified by the file (that is, those given by LaTeX's or commands), and creates as output a file containing these entries together with the formatting commands specified by the file [..]. LaTeX will use the file, perhaps edited by the user, to produce the reference list.

History

BibTeX was created by Oren Patashnik and Leslie Lamport in 1985. The program is written in WEB/Pascal. Version 0.98f was released in March 1985. With version 0.99c (released February 1988), a stationary state was reached for 22 years. In March 2010, version 0.99d was released to improve URL printing. Further releases were announced.

Reimplementations

Database files

BibTeX uses a style-independent text-based file format, a kind of flat-file database, to store bibliography items, such as articles, books, and theses. BibTeX database file names usually end in. A BibTeX database file is formed by a list of entries, with each entry corresponding to a bibliographical item. Entry types correspond to various types of bibliographic sources such as, , or. An example entry which describes a mathematical handbook would be structured as an entry name followed by a list of fields, such as and : If a document references this handbook, the bibliographic information may be formatted in different ways depending on which citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago etc.) is employed. The way LaTeX deals with this is by specifying commands and the desired bibliography style in the LaTeX document. If the command appears inside a LaTeX document, the program will include this book in the list of references for the document and generate appropriate LaTeX formatting code. When viewing the formatted LaTeX document, the result might look like this: Depending on the style file, BibTeX may rearrange authors' last names, change the case of titles, omit fields present in the file, format text in italics, add punctuation, etc. Since the same style file is used for an entire list of references, these are all formatted consistently with minimal effort required from authors or editors.

Entry types

A BibTeX database can contain the following types of entries:

Field types

A BibTeX entry can contain various types of fields. The following types are recognized by the default bibliography styles; some third-party styles may accept additional ones: In addition, each entry contains a key (Bibtexkey) that is used to cite or cross-reference the entry. This key is the first item in a BibTeX entry, and is not part of any field.

Style files

BibTeX formats bibliographic items according to a style file, typically by generating TeX or LaTeX formatting commands, but style files can also be used to generate other types of output like HTML. BibTeX style files commonly use the file extension and are written in a simple, stack-based programming language (dubbed "BibTeX Anonymous Forth-Like Language", or "BAFLL", by Drew McDermott ) that describes how bibliography items should be formatted. There are some packages that can generate files automatically, such as custom-bib and Bib-it. Most journals or publishers that support LaTeX use a customized bibliographic style file for the convenience of the authors, often included as part of a complete LaTeX template.

Examples of uses