REFER(1) General Commands Manual REFER(1)
refer - find and insert literature references in documents
refer [ -a ] [ -b ] [ -c ] [ -e ] [ -fn ] [ -kx ] [ -lm,n ] [ -n ] [ -p bib ] [ -skeys ] [ -Bl.m ] [ -P ] [ -S ] [ file ... ]
Refer is a preprocessor for nroff or troff(1) that finds and formats references for footnotes or endnotes. It is also the base for a
series of programs designed to index, search, sort, and print stand-alone bibliographies, or other data entered in the appropriate form.
Given an incomplete citation with sufficiently precise keywords, refer will search a bibliographic database for references containing these
keywords anywhere in the title, author, journal, etc. The input file (or standard input) is copied to standard output, except for lines
between .[ and .] delimiters, which are assumed to contain keywords, and are replaced by information from the bibliographic database. The
user may also search different databases, override particular fields, or add new fields. The reference data, from whatever source, are
assigned to a set of troff strings. Macro packages such as ms(7) print the finished reference text from these strings. By default refer-
ences are flagged by footnote numbers.
The following options are available:
-an Reverse the first n author names (Jones, J. A. instead of J. A. Jones). If n is omitted all author names are reversed.
-b Bare mode: do not put any flags in text (neither numbers nor labels).
Capitalize (with CAPS SMALL CAPS) the fields whose key-letters are in keys.
-e Instead of leaving the references where encountered, accumulate them until a sequence of the form
is encountered, and then write out all references collected so far. Collapse references to same source.
-fn Set the footnote number to n instead of the default of 1 (one). With labels rather than numbers, this flag is a no-op.
-kx Instead of numbering references, use labels as specified in a reference data line beginning %x; by default x is L.
-lm,n Instead of numbering references, use labels made from the senior author's last name and the year of publication. Only the first m
letters of the last name and the last n digits of the date are used. If either m or n is omitted the entire name or date respec-
tively is used.
-n Do not search the default file /usr/dict/papers/Ind. If there is a REFER environment variable, the specified file will be searched
instead of the default file; in this case the -n flag has no effect.
Take the next argument bib as a file of references to be searched. The default file is searched last.
Sort references by fields whose key-letters are in the keys string; permute reference numbers in text accordingly. Implies -e. The
key-letters in keys may be followed by a number to indicate how many such fields are used, with + taken as a very large number. The
default is AD which sorts on the senior author and then date; to sort, for example, on all authors and then title, use -sA+T.
-Bl.m Bibliography mode. Take a file composed of records separated by blank lines, and turn them into troff input. Label l will be turned
into the macro .m with l defaulting to %X and .m defaulting to .AP (annotation paragraph).
-P Place punctuation marks .,:;?! after the reference signal, rather than before. (Periods and commas used to be done with strings.)
-S Produce references in the Natural or Social Science format.
To use your own references, put them in the format described below. They can be searched more rapidly by running indxbib(1) on them before
using refer; failure to index results in a linear search. When refer is used with the eqn, neqn or tbl preprocessors refer should be
first, to minimize the volume of data passed through pipes.
The refer preprocessor and associated programs expect input from a file of references composed of records separated by blank lines. A
record is a set of lines (fields), each containing one kind of information. Fields start on a line beginning with a ``%'', followed by a
key-letter, then a blank, and finally the contents of the field, and continue until the next line starting with ``%''. The output ordering
and formatting of fields is controlled by the macros specified for nroff/troff (for footnotes and endnotes) or roffbib (for stand-alone
bibliographies). For a list of the most common key-letters and their corresponding fields, see addbib(1). An example of a refer entry is
%A M. E. Lesk
%T Some Applications of Inverted Indexes on the UNIX System
%B UNIX Programmer's Manual
%I Bell Laboratories
%C Murray Hill, NJ
/usr/dict/papers directory of default publication lists
/usr/libexec/refer directory of companion programs
addbib(1), sortbib(1), roffbib(1), indxbib(1), lookbib(1)
Blank spaces at the end of lines in bibliography fields will cause the records to sort and reverse incorrectly. Sorting large numbers of
references causes a core dump.
7th Edition October 22, 1996 REFER(1)