


User Commands					      BIBCHECK(1)



NAME
     bibcheck -	check a	BibTeX bibliography file

SYNOPSIS
     bibcheck [	-author	] [ -copyright ] [ -debug ] [ -help  ]	[
     -version ]	<infile	>outfile
     or
     bibcheck [	-author	] [ -copyright ] [ -debug ] [ -help  ]	[
     -version ]	BibTeXfile(s) >outfile

DESCRIPTION
     bibcheck applies heuristic	checks to BibTeX files to  ferret
     out  possible  errors,  portability  problems, and	stylistic
     problems, often finding ones that	are  quite  difficult  to
     spot by manual proofreading.

     Some of the checks	made are

     o unrecognized token;

     o duplicate @String abbreviations;

     o duplicate citation labels;

     o duplicate keywords in a single bibliographic entry;

     o unbalanced braces in value strings;

     o use of comma instead of and in author/editor names;

     o ellipses	represented by consecutive dots, rather	than by	a
       TeX control sequence;

     o horizontal tabs instead of spaces;

     o unprotected special characters (ampersand, percent,  sharp
       sign) that would	have special significance to TeX;

     o subscripts or superscripts outside of math mode;

     o unclosed	math mode;

     o space before punctuation;

     o spaces or periods missing after initials;

     o tildes (TeX's tie command should	be rare	in BibTeX  files,
       because BibTeX normally supplies	needed ones);

     o non-standard characters in citation labels;

     o spurious	blank lines;



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User Commands					      BIBCHECK(1)



     o braced partial words;

     o unbraced	mixed-case words in titles;

     o hyphens instead of en-dashes in page-number ranges;

     o typewriter quotation marks inside strings;

     o omitted protecting braces inside	quotation marks;

     o trailing	white space.

     Warning messages identify the file	name and line number,  in
     a	format	recognized  by	the GNU	Emacs compile command, so
     that you can run it from within  an  emacs(1)  session,  and
     then position rapidly to the source file locations	where the
     messages were raised.

     lacheck(1)	performs similar checks	on LaTeX files;	its great
     utility was the inspiration for this program.

OPTIONS
     Command-line options may be abbreviated to	a unique  leading
     prefix, and letter	case is	ignored.

     The leading hyphen	 that  distinguishes  an  option  from	a
     filename  may  be	doubled,  for  compatibility with GNU and
     POSIX  conventions.   Thus,   -author   and   --author   are
     equivalent.

     To	avoid confusion	with options, if a filename begins with	a
     hyphen,  it must be disguised by a	leading	absolute or rela-
     tive directory path, e.g.	/tmp/-foo.bib or ./-foo.bib.

     -author	  Display an author credit on  stderr,	and  exit
		  with a success status	code.

     -copyright	  Display a copyright message on stderr, and exit
		  with a success status	code.

     -debug	  Display a token stream on stdout, suitable  for
		  possible input to bibunlex(1), or for	identify-
		  ing the cause	of a reported parsing error.

     -help	  Display a usage message  on  stderr,	and  exit
		  with a success status	code.

     -version	  Display a program version  message  on  stderr,
		  and exit with	a success status code.

SEE ALSO
     bibclean(1),    bibdup(1),	   bibextract(1),    bibindex(1),



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User Commands					      BIBCHECK(1)



     bibjoin(1), biblabel(1), biblex(1), biblook(1), biborder(1),
     bibparse(1),  bibsearch(1),  bibsort(1),  bibsplit(1),  bib-
     tex(1), bibunlex(1), emacs(1), lacheck(1).

AUTHOR
     Nelson H. F. Beebe
     Center for	Scientific Computing
     University	of Utah
     Department	of Mathematics,	322 INSCC
     155 S 1400	E RM 233
     Salt Lake City, UT	84112-0090
     USA
     Email: beebe@math.utah.edu, beebe@acm.org,	beebe@computer.org,
	    beebe@ieee.org (Internet)
     WWW URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe
     Telephone:	+1 801 581 5254
     FAX: +1 801 585 1640, +1 801 581 4148

COPYRIGHT
     ########################################################################
     ########################################################################
     ########################################################################
     ###								  ###
     ###	     bibcheck: check a BibTeX bibliography file		  ###
     ###								  ###
     ###	      Copyright	(C) 2000 Nelson	H. F. Beebe		  ###
     ###								  ###
     ### This program is covered by the	GNU General Public License (GPL), ###
     ### version 2 or later, available as the file COPYING in the program ###
     ### source	distribution, and on the Internet at			  ###
     ###								  ###
     ###	       ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/GPL			  ###
     ###								  ###
     ###	       http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html		  ###
     ###								  ###
     ### This program is free software;	you can	redistribute it	and/or	  ###
     ### modify	it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as	  ###
     ### published by the Free Software	Foundation; either version 2 of	  ###
     ### the License, or (at your option) any later version.		  ###
     ###								  ###
     ### This program is distributed in	the hope that it will be useful,  ###
     ### but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even	the implied warranty of	  ###
     ### MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR	A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the	  ###
     ### GNU General Public License for	more details.			  ###
     ###								  ###
     ### You should have received a copy of the	GNU General Public	  ###
     ### License along with this program; if not, write	to the Free	  ###
     ### Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330,	Boston,	  ###
     ### MA 02111-1307 USA						  ###
     ########################################################################
     ########################################################################
     ########################################################################



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User Commands					      BIBCHECK(1)



AVAILABILITY
     Internet source distributions of bibcheck are  available  at
     the World-Wide Web	Uniform	Resource Locator addresses

	  ftp://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/bibcheck-x.yy.jar
	  ftp://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/bibcheck-x.yy.tar.gz
	  ftp://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/bibcheck-x.yy.zip
	  ftp://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/bibcheck-x.yy.zoo

	  http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/bibcheck-x.yy.jar
	  http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/bibcheck-x.yy.tar.gz
	  http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/bibcheck-x.yy.zip
	  http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/bibcheck-x.yy.zoo

     where x.yy	is the current	version	 (0.10	for  the  version
     whose documentation you are now reading).

     That site is mirrored to several other Internet archives, so
     you  may  also be able to find it elsewhere on the	Internet;
     try searching for the string bibcheck at one or more of  the
     popular Web search	sites, such as

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	  http://www.snap.com/
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	  http://www.yahoo.com/

















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