malihealikhani/bibtex-tidy

BibTeX Tidy - Cleaner and Formatter for BibTeX files

bibtex-tidy

Tidy bibtex files. Try it out.

npm install -g bibtex-tidy
bibtex-tidy references.bib

Example

Before:

@ARTICLE {feinberg1983technique,
  title={A technique for radiolabeling DNA restriction endonuclease fragments to high specific activity},
author="Feinberg, Andrew P and Vogelstein, Bert",
  journal    = {Analytical biochemistry},
  volume = 132,
  number={1},
  pages={6--13},
  year={1983},
  publisher={Elsevier},}
@article{miles1984qualitative,
    title={Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook},
    author={Miles, Matthew B and Huberman, A Michael and Saldana, J},
    journal={Beverly Hills},
    year={1984}
}

After bibtex-tidy references.bib --curly --numeric:

@article{feinberg1983technique,
  title         = {A technique for radiolabeling DNA restriction endonuclease fragments to high specific activity},
  author        = {Feinberg, Andrew P and Vogelstein, Bert},
  year          = 1983,
  journal       = {Analytical biochemistry},
  publisher     = {Elsevier},
  volume        = 132,
  number        = 1,
  pages         = {6--13}
}
@article{miles1984qualitative,
  title         = {Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook},
  author        = {Miles, Matthew B and Huberman, A Michael and Saldana, J},
  year          = 1984,
  journal       = {Beverly Hills}
}

Options

Usage: ./bin/bibtex-tidy [OPTION]... FILE.BIB
BibTeX Tidy - cleaner and formatter for BibTeX files.
Options:
  --help                   Show help

  --omit=x,y,z             Remove specified fields from bibliography entries.
                           Examples: --omit=id,name

  --curly                  Enclose all property values in braces. Quoted values
                           will be converted to braces. For example, "Journal of
                           Tea" will become {Journal of Tea}.

  --numeric                Strip quotes and braces from numeric/month values. For
                           example, {1998} will become 1998.

  --space=NUMBER           Prefix all fields with the specified number of spaces
                           (ignored if tab is set).
                           Examples: --space=2 (default) --space=4

  --tab                    Prefix all fields with a tab.

  --align=NUMBER           Insert whitespace between fields and values so that
                           values are visually aligned.
                           Examples: --align=14 (default) --no-align

  --sort=x,y,z             Sort entries by specified fields. For descending order,
                           prefix the field with a dash (-).
                           Examples: --sort (sort by id) --sort=-year,name (sort
                           year descending then name ascending) --sort=name,year

  --merge                  Two entries are considered duplicates in the following
                           cases: (a) their DOIs are identical, (b) their abstracts
                           are identical, or (c) their authors and titles are both
                           identical. The firstmost entry is kept and any extra
                           properties from duplicate entries are incorporated.

  --strip-enclosing-braces Where an entire value is enclosed in double braces,
                           remove the extra braces. For example, {{Journal of Tea}}
                           will become {Journal of Tea}.

  --drop-all-caps          Where values are all caps, make them title case. For
                           example, {JOURNAL OF TEA} will become {Journal of Tea}.

  --escape                 Escape special characters, such as umlaut. This ensures
                           correct typesetting with latex.
                           Examples: --escape (default) --no-escape

  --sort-fields=x,y,z      Sort the fields within entries. The default sort order
                           is title, shorttitle, author, year, month, day, journal,
                           booktitle, location, on, publisher, address, series,
                           volume, number, pages, doi, isbn, issn, url, urldate,
                           copyright, category, note, metadata. Alternatively, you
                           can specify field names delimed by spaces or commas.
                           Examples: --sort-fields=name,author

  --strip-comments         Remove all comments from the bibtex source.

  --encode-urls            Replace invalid URL characters with percent encoded
                           values.

  --tidy-comments          Remove whitespace surrounding comments.

Merging duplicates

Using --merge will cause bibtex-tidy to merge any entries which share the same DOI, have identical abstracts, or have identical authors and title.

Programmatic usage

npm install bibtex-tidy

const tidy = require('bibtex-tidy');
const bibtex = fs.readFileSync('references.bib', 'utf8');
tidy.tidy(bibtex, { curly: true }); // options are identical to command line usage

Browser

<script src="https://unpkg.com/bibtex-tidy"></script>
<script>
var bibtex = document.getElementById('input').value;
var result = bibtexTidy.tidy(bibtex);
console.log(result.bibtex); // the tidied bibtex

Also available on bower

bower install bibtex-tidy

Building and Testing

To build bibtex-tidy, run:

npm run build

Unit tests can be run using:

npm test