This documentation describes bibhtml, version 1.1, 6 June 1999.
Bibhtml consists of a Perl script and a BibTeX style file, which together allow you to compile a bibliography for a collection of HTML files. The references in the text are linked directly to the corresponding bibliography entry, and if a URL is defined in the entry within the BibTeX database file, then the generated bibliography entry is linked to this.
The BibTeX style file is plainhtml.bst, and is
derived from the standard plain.bst. You can obviously
generate alternative versions of this style file in the same way as
you can with LaTeX, and specify them to bibhtml using the
-s option. The file
plainhtmldate.bst is an example of such a file, which
produces its output in date order. If you do this, please do not call
the changed file plainhtml.bst, to avoid confusion.
The BibTeX style files distributed as part of this package are also of considerable use in isolation.
Bibhtml works with a standard BibTeX database -- it is
intended to be compatible with a database used in the standard way
with LaTeX. The BibTeX style files
distributed with this package define an additional
url field: if this is present, then the generated entry
will contain a link to this URL. They also define an
eprint field -- if you do not use the LANL preprint
archive, this will be of no interest to you.
TeX features such as ~ and -- are translated to
corresponding HTML entities (controlled with the +3
switch, see below), but other TeX constructions will make their way
into the generated HTML, and look a little odd. I might try to deal
with these in future versions.
You prepare your text simply by including links to the bibliography file
(the default is bibliography.html), followed by a fragment
composed of the BibTeX citation key. Thus, you might cite [grendel89]
with
<a href="bibliography.html#grendel89">(Grendel, 1989)</a>
(of course, the link text can be anything you like). That's all there is to
it. When you run bibhtml, it generates an
.aux file which makes BibTeX produce references for exactly those
keys which appear in this way.
The bibliography file is an ordinary HTML document (which may
itself have citations within it), distinguished only by having two
magic comments within it.
Bibhtml replaces everything between
<!-- bibhtml:start -->
and
<!-- bibhtml:end -->
(which should be on lines by themselves) with the formatted
bibliography. It leaves those comments in place, naturally, so once
this file is set up, you shouldn't have to touch it again.
As a special case, bibhtml also replaces the line after a
comment <!-- bibhtml:today --> with today's date.
bibhtml depends on several BibTeX style files.
plainhtml.bst, plainhtmldate.bst and
plainhtmldater.bst are derived from the standard
plain.bst. All produce HTML, but the latter two sort the
output by date and reverse date, rather than by author.
alphahtml.bst and friends were derived from the standard
alpha.bst, and contributed to the package, by Franz
G. Fischer, Franz.Fischer@lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de,
to whom thanks are due.
Although these style files are distributed as part of bibhtml they are also useful in isolation, as part of a larger system which generates HTML.
Bibhtml takes a list of HTML files as argument (though see
below for a two-pass variant). It creates an
.aux file, runs BibTeX, and merges the resulting
.bbl file (if it exists) into bibliography.html, or
whatever has been specified as the bibliography file name.
There are several options:
rootname.html,
rootname.aux and so on. Why not just stick with the default
`bibliography'...?
\bibliography{} command in LaTeX. Unless you happen to
keep all your references in a file called bib.bib, you'll
probably want to change this.
\bibstyle command in
LaTeX. If you want to have a different layout for your HTML
bibliographies, please don't change the file plainhtml.bst
distributed with bibhtml. Instead, make a copy of
plainhtml.bst under a different name, edit it as much as you
like, and use this option of bibhtml to use the modified
version instead of the default.
~ translated to
, and -- to
&enspace;. Or set it to -3 (the default) if you
don't.
\nocite{*} in LaTeX.
.bbl file and an .html file,
merges the first into the second, and nothing else. It's
intended to be used when you have generated a
.bbl file by a separate run of BibTeX, and simply
wish to merge the results into your bibliography file. As
such, it will most likely be useful as part of a script, or
other post-processing system.
The defaults for the various parameters are unlikely to be helpful,
so you're likely to want to set one or more of them every time you run
the program. It is for this reason, and because you're likely to want
the same set of options every time you create the bibliography for a
set of files in a directory, that you can put a collection of options
in a configuration file. This can be specified on the command line
with the option -c configfilename. If this option
is not given, then bibhtml looks for a file named
bibhtml.config. For example, the configuration
file might contain:
-b mybib +3 -r refs
Nothing to it.... On Unix, for example, put bibhtml
somewhere in your path and make it executable (chmod u+x
bibhtml), and put *.bst somewhere BibTeX
will find it (this means either looking at the
environment variable BSTINPUTS, or running the command
kpsepath bst, if you have it). If you want to use the two-pass variant of the program, then make a symbolic
link with ln -s bibhtml bibhtml2.
If you wish, you may change the distributed BibTeX style files (see
above) to the extent of changing the
`eprint' mirror site from the master xxx.lanl.gov to a
more local mirror. If you don't use the LANL preprint archive, this
will be of no interest to you.
Perl's system() command obviously won't work on a Mac,
and I don't believe that either of the well-known BibTeX ports is yet
Apple-scriptable. Consequently, I can't persuade Perl to run BibTeX
for you, so you have to do it by hand. This means you must first
create the .aux file using bibhtml, then run
BibTeX, then run bibhtml again, to merge the newly generated
.bbl file into the bibliography (and redundantly generate
a fresh .aux file).
If you're using MacPerl, you can create a MacPerl droplet by
opening bibhtml and saving it as a droplet, giving it the
name `MacBibhtml'. To use this, drop a selection of
.html files on to it, and it will generate an aux-file.
Run BibTeX, and then drop the generated bbl-file onto
MacBibhtml again.
MacPerl is available in ports/mac on
CPAN.
On Unix, you might have a need to invoke the
two phases separately. If you make a symbolic link to the program via
ln -s bibhtml bibhtml2 (the name doesn't actually matter,
as long as it isn't called `bibhtml'), then you can generate an
aux-file alone by giving the command bibhtml2 *.html,
say; and you can merge a bbl-file into the bibliography file with the
command bibhtml2 bibliography.bbl. You can do the same
thing on the Mac by duplicating the MacPerl droplet and giving it the
name bibhtml2. The command line option
--merge above may be more suitable
if you are calling this code from a script, as it requires you to
specify both the .bbl and the .html file it
is being merged with, (and so it is more robust, and more flexible).
On both the Mac and on Unix, this works because the program is able to detect the name it was invoked under. This may be more difficult on other platforms. If so, please get in touch, with suggestions.
[brown95] gives a clear discussion of the problems of citing electronic documents, as do Walker and Emory.
This file was processed with the command bibhtml -b bibrefs
-r bibhtml bibhtml.html to produce the document you are reading
now.
Bibhtml is available on CTAN, and at http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/norman/distrib/bibhtml.html.
Download the distribution: bibhtml-1.0.tar.gz.
Do let me know if you use this stuff. I'd be grateful for any bug reports, and bug fixes, and also for any comments on the clarity or otherwise of this documentation.
This software is copyright, 1999, Norman Gray. It is released
under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence. See the copyright
declaration at the top of file bibhtml, and the file
LICENCE for the licence conditions. You can find an
online copy of the GPL at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.