Multiple labels in Bibtex?

Richard P. Muller

unread,

Mar 26, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/26/97

to

Is it possible to have multiple labels on an entry in Bibtex?

My group wants to unify a couple of .bib files, but keep them backwards
compatible with old papers.

We have entries like...

@article{Muller95,
author="Richard P. Muller",
...
}

and

@article{QMMM,
author="Richard P. Muller",
...
}

Is there any way we can put both labels (QMMM and Muller95) in the same
@article{} entry? Such as

@article{QMMM,Muller95,
author=Richard P. Muller",
...
}

We could, of course, put duplicate @article entries, but I worry that we
might miss updates to one of the records.

What should we do?

Rick Muller

Lars Engebretsen

unread,

Mar 26, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/26/97

to

--Multipart_Wed_Mar_26_22:30:13_1997-1
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

"Richard P. Muller" <rmu...@rcf.usc.edu> writes:

> Is it possible to have multiple labels on an entry in Bibtex?

I have a similar problem:

We have a couple of large BibTeX databases corresponding to different
conference proceedings and journals. Within each bib file all keys are
unique, but there are name clashes between the different bib files. Is
it possible to reference an entry in the database with something like

\cite{file/key}

to avoid the conflicts?

--Multipart_Wed_Mar_26_22:30:13_1997-1
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Lars Engebretsen, M.Sc., <en...@nada.kth.se>

--Multipart_Wed_Mar_26_22:30:13_1997-1--

Gerd Neugebauer

unread,

Mar 27, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/27/97

to

Lars Engebretsen <en...@nada.kth.se> writes:

> We have a couple of large BibTeX databases corresponding to different
> conference proceedings and journals. Within each bib file all keys are
> unique, but there are name clashes between the different bib files. Is
> it possible to reference an entry in the database with something like
>
> \cite{file/key}
>
> to avoid the conflicts?

No. Not without changing the sources of BibTeX.

But I can recommend my program BibTool
(http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~gerd/ftp/BibTool/) to consistently rename
the keys by adding a constant prefix (the filename), or merging the
BibTeX files and generate new keys according to a scheme which can be
specified. This might include all or part of the name of the
journal/conference and thus making the keys unique.

--
____ ___ __ ___ Gerd Neugebauer
/ / /___) /' ) /___) FB Informatik, Universitaet Koblenz-Landau
(___/- (___ / / (___ Rheinau 1, 56075 Koblenz (Germany)
_____/____________________ Phone: (+49)261/9119-446 Fax: (+49)261/9119-496
(____/ WWW: http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~gerd

Petr Prikryl

unread,

Mar 28, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/28/97

to

Richard P. Muller (rmu...@rcf.usc.edu) wrote:
>Is it possible to have multiple labels on an entry in Bibtex?

...

>We have entries like...
>@article{Muller95,
> author="Richard P. Muller",
...
>and
>@article{QMMM,
> author="Richard P. Muller",
...
>Is there any way we can put both labels (QMMM and Muller95) in the same
>@article{} entry? Such as
>@article{QMMM,Muller95,
> author=Richard P. Muller",
...
>We could, of course, put duplicate @article entries, but I worry that we
>might miss updates to one of the records.

Items in the entry are separated by comma. In your last case, BibTeX would
think about Muller95 as about identifier of the first item with value where
the value was not set (error).

I did not try it for the case like yours, but crossref should work for you:

@article{QMMM,
crossref = "Muller95"
}

@article{Muller95,
author = "...",
...
}

The entry with crossref must be placed BEFORE the referenced entry. You can
even put it on one line like @article{QMMM, crossref = "Muller95"}.
The crossref is usually used to create separate entries for articles in
the same book -- like several @InProceedings in one @Proceedings. The entry
with crossref copies all items from the referenced entry and replaces or
adds the explicitly stated items (like redefinition).

You can check my bibtex database at

http://www.fee.vutbr.cz/~prikryl/PAPERS/prikryl.bib

for some examples. However, I do not consider myself an expert in this.
I am going to ask others in this newsgroup for the experience.

Petr
--
Petr Prikryl (pri...@dcse.fee.vutbr.cz) http://www.fee.vutbr.cz/~prikryl/
TU of Brno, Dept. of Computer Sci. & Engineering; tel. +420-(0)5-7275 218