M-x parsebib-find-next-item does not show up

[icymist]

• Versions
  emacs: 24.3.1
• .emacs

; bare bones
(require 'package)
(package-initialize)
(require 'parsebib)
;(load "parsebib.el")
;(load "/home/chaitanya/.emacs.d/elpa/parsebib-20150205.1305/parsebib.el")

C-h f parse-bib-next-item shows help about the function.

But, M-x parsebib-find-next-item does not show up. Says, No match.

Tried (load "parsebib.el") and also (load "absolute-path-to-parsebib.el"); both give same result as above.

When loading .el file do not byte compile to .elc files; although, I am not sure if this should be the case.

Since, parsebib is not working for me, I can't use helm-bibtex and therefore org-ref.

Might be related to tmalsburg/helm-bibtex#25

[joostkremers]

M-x parsebib-find-next-item isn't supposed to turn anything up, because parsebib-find-next-item isn't a command: it cannot be executed with M-x.

I suspect you have the same problem as reported in tmalsburg/helm-bibtex#25, though. Have you tried restarting Emacs and reinstalling parsebib?

[icymist]

Yep. I think they are related too.

I restarted emacs a zillion times. Also, I reinstalled parsebib a couple of times. Same result.

Can you tell me how I can test if parsebib is working the way it is supposed to work?

[joostkremers]

Weird...

You can test what parsebib does by opening a .bib file in Emacs and then do M-: (parsebib-find-next-item). That should return the name of the first item after point, e.g.,

#("incollection" 0 12 (fontified t face font-lock-function-name-face))

This is the representation of a fontified string, the important part is the string at the beginning (here "incollection").

Then, without moving the cursor, do M-: (parsebib-read-entry “incollection”). That should return the fields of the entry as an alist.

If the first item is a @preamble or @string, use parsebib-read-preamble or parsebib-read-string instead, both of which take no arguments.

If that doesn’t return anything, could you post a few of your BibTeX entries in a gist or in this thread, so I can take a look at them? Thanks.

[icymist]

Both parsebib-find-next-item and parsebib-read-entry work in the bibtex
file that I used. But, obviously I only checked a couple of entries at the
top of the file.

I am not sure errors, if there are any, further down in the file would
cause errors in helm-bibtex.

Doing M-x helm-bibtex > pattern: /search term/ leads to fall back behavior.
Basically, it just shows 'Loading bibliography' and then if I just type the
search term and press enter, it just takes me to the end of the bib file
(which I think is the fallback behavior for helm-bibtex).

On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 11:07 PM, Joost Kremers notifications@github.com
wrote:

Weird...

You can test what parsebib does by opening a .bib file in Emacs and then
do M-: (parsebib-find-next-item). That should return the name of the
first item after point, e.g.,

#("incollection" 0 12 (fontified t face font-lock-function-name-face))

This is the representation of a fontified string, the important part is
the string at the beginning (here "incollection").

Then, without moving the cursor, do M-: (parsebib-read-entry
“incollection”). That should return the fields of the entry as an alist.

If the first item is a @Preamble or @string, use parsebib-read-preamble
or parsebib-read-string instead, both of which take no arguments.

If that doesn’t return anything, could you post a few of your BibTeX
entries in a gist or in this thread, so I can take a look at them? Thanks.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#3 (comment).

42

[joostkremers]

Try this:

• Open your .bib file

• Go to the *scratch* buffer

• Copy & paste the following code (replace "Bibliography.bib" with the name of your .bib file):

  (with-current-buffer "Bibliography.bib"
     (let ((entries (helm-bibtex-parse-bibliography)))
        (assoc "=key=" (car (last entries)))))
  

• Put the cursor right after the last parenthesis and type C-x C-e

The key of the last entry read should appear in the minibuffer.

[icymist]

This is what I get. The bib file is created by JabRef. JabRef opens the file just fine. I will also check if the file can be processed by a python bibtex module and post a link to the whole file shortly.

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-type-argument char-or-string-p nil)
  #[(it) "�@\227�AB\207" [--cl-var--] 2](("Url" . "{http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.81.121413}"))
  mapcar(#[(it) "�@\227�AB\207" [--cl-var--] 2] (("Url" . "{http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.81.121413}") ("Timestamp" . "{2013.07.23}") ("Publisher" . "{American Physical Society}") ("Owner" . "{chaitanya}") ("Numpages" . "{4}") ("Keywords" . "{Ru(0001), RuO2, CO oxidation}") ("Issue" . "{12}") ("File" . "{Sljivancanin10.pdf:Sljivancanin10.pdf:PDF}") ("Doi" . "{10.1103/PhysRevB.81.121413}") ("Volume" . "{81}") ("Pages" . "{121413}") ("Month" . "{Mar}") ("Year" . "{2010}") ("Journal" . "{Physical Review B}") ("Author" . "{\\v{S}ljivan\\v{c}anin, \\v{Z}eljko and Hammer, Bj\\o{}rk}") ("Title" . "{{CO} oxidation on fully oxygen covered {R}u(0001): {R}ole of step edges}") ("=type=" . #("Article" 0 7 (fontified t face font-lock-function-name-face))) ("=key=" . "Sljivancanin10")))
  helm-bibtex-parse-bibliography()
  (let ((entries (helm-bibtex-parse-bibliography))) (assoc "=key=" (car (last entries))))
  (save-current-buffer (set-buffer "mynewrefs.bib") (let ((entries (helm-bibtex-parse-bibliography))) (assoc "=key=" (car (last entries)))))
  (with-current-buffer "mynewrefs.bib" (let ((entries (helm-bibtex-parse-bibliography))) (assoc "=key=" (car (last entries)))))
  eval((with-current-buffer "mynewrefs.bib" (let ((entries (helm-bibtex-parse-bibliography))) (assoc "=key=" (car (last entries))))) nil)
  eval-last-sexp-1(nil)
  eval-last-sexp(nil)
  ad-Orig-call-interactively(eval-last-sexp nil nil)
  call-interactively(eval-last-sexp nil nil)

[icymist]

I can parse the file without any problem with pybtex.

Here is the link to the full file if you want to have a look.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzoeB0s5X2tYcjhiSzdQR2d4d3M/view?usp=sharing

[joostkremers]

I downloaded your file and tried to read it. On my machine, parsebib has no problems with it. I'm using Emacs 24.4, though, so perhaps it's a problem with Emacs 24.3. I'm trying to set up a virtual machine with Emacs 24.3 so I can test that version. Will let you know ASAP.

[joostkremers]

Ok, I installed the VM and did some experimenting. The problem is not with parsebib nor with helm-bibtex. For some reason, the interaction of cl-loop and --map triggers a bug in (I think) cl-loop that has apparently been fixed in Emacs 24.4. It's possible to work around it, but that has to be done in helm-bibtex. I'll report the issue to the helm-bibtex maintainer, but for now, to get things working again, you can replace the function helm-bibtex-parse-bibliograpy with the following modified version:

(defun helm-bibtex-parse-bibliography ()
  "Parse the BibTeX entries listed in the current buffer and
return a list of entry keys in the order in which the entries
appeared in the BibTeX files."
  (goto-char (point-min))
  (cl-loop
   for entry-type = (parsebib-find-next-item)
   while entry-type
   unless (member-ignore-case entry-type '("preamble" "string" "comment"))
   collect (-map (lambda (it)
                   (cons (downcase (car it)) (cdr it)))
                 (parsebib-read-entry entry-type))))

You can put this function in your ~/emacs.d/init.el after (require 'helm-bibtex), or you can replace the function in helm-bibtex.el and recompile the file.

[joostkremers]

The latest version of helm-bibtex contains a fix for this issue. Do report back if you still have problems.

[icymist]

Works now. Thank you! @joostkremers @tmalsburg