Usage¶
Roles and Directives¶
-
:cite:
¶ Create a citation to a bibliographic entry. For example:
See :cite:`1987:nelson` for an introduction to non-standard analysis.
which would be equivalent to the following LaTeX code:
See \cite{1987:nelson} for an introduction to non-standard analysis.
Multiple comma-separated keys can be specified at once:
See :cite:`1987:nelson,2001:schechter`.
Note
Due to a docutils implementation detail, Sphinx’s LaTeX backend will not actually generate
\cite
commands. Instead, all references, including citation references, are managed using\hyperref
and\label
commands. See https://github.com/mcmtroffaes/sphinxcontrib-bibtex/issues/10
-
.. bibliography::
refs.bib [...]
¶ Create bibliography for all cited references. The
all
flag forces all references to be included (equivalent to\nocite{*}
in LaTeX). Thenotcited
flag causes all references that were not cited to be included. Thecited
flag is recognized as well but is entirely optional. For example:.. rubric:: References .. bibliography:: refs.bib :cited:
which would be roughly equivalent to the following LaTeX code:
\begin{thebibliography}{1} \bibitem{1987:nelson} Edward~Nelson \newblock {\em Radically Elementary Probability Theory}. \newblock Princeton University Press, 1987. \end{thebibliography}
Note that, unlike LaTeX, the
bibliography
directive does not generate a default section title.Warning
Sphinx may not be able to create an entry for
cite
keys when yourbibliography
directive resides in a different document; see Unresolved Citations Across Documents for more information and workarounds.You can also pick a bibliography style, using the
style
option. Thealpha
style is the default. Other supported styles areplain
,unsrt
, andunsrtalpha
... bibliography:: refs.bib :style: unsrt
Warning
Sphinx will attempt to resolve references to the bibliography across all documents, so you must take care that no citation key is included more than once.
You can also set the encoding of the bibliography files, using the
encoding
option... bibliography:: refs.bib :encoding: latex+latin
Note that, usually, you want to prepend your encoding with
latex+
, in order to convert LaTeX control characters to unicode characters (for instance, to convert\'e
intoé
). The latex codec is invoked by default, for your convenience. Be sure to write\%
when you intend to format a percent sign.
Advanced Features¶
Bullet Lists and Enumerated Lists¶
New in version 0.2.4.
You can change the type of list used for rendering the bibliography. By default, a paragraph of standard citations is generated. However, instead, you can also generate a bullet list, or an enumerated list.
.. bibliography:: refs1.bib
:list: bullet
:all:
.. bibliography:: refs2.bib
:list: enumerated
:all:
Note that citations to these types of bibliography lists will not be resolved.
For enumerated lists, you can also specify the type (default is
arabic
), and the start of the sequence (default is 1
).
.. bibliography:: refs2.bib
:list: enumerated
:enumtype: upperroman
:start: 3
:all:
The enumtype can be any of
arabic
(1, 2, 3, ...),
loweralpha
(a, b, c, ...),
upperalpha
(A, B, C, ...),
lowerroman
(i, ii, iii, ...), or
upperroman
(I, II, III, ...).
The start can be any positive integer (1, 2, 3, ...) or
continue
if you wish the enumeration to continue from the last
bibliography
directive.
This is helpful if you split up your bibliography but
still want to enumerate the entries continuously.
Label Prefixing¶
New in version 0.2.5.
If you have multiple bibliographies, and experience duplicate labels,
use the labelprefix
option.
.. rubric:: References
.. bibliography:: refs.bib
:cited:
:labelprefix: A
.. rubric:: Further reading
.. bibliography:: refs.bib
:notcited:
:labelprefix: B
Key Prefixing¶
New in version 0.3.3.
If you have multiple bibliographies, and you would like entries to be
repeated in different documents, then use the keyprefix
option.
For example, suppose you have two documents, and you would like to cite
boole1854
in both of these doucments, with the bibliography entries
showing in both of the documents. In one document you could have:
See :cite:`a-boole1854`
.. bibliography:: refs.bib
:labelprefix: A
:keyprefix: a-
whilst in the other document you could have:
See :cite:`b-boole1854`
.. bibliography:: refs.bib
:labelprefix: B
:keyprefix: b-
The bibliographies will then both generate an entry for boole1854
,
with links and backlinks as expected.
See also
Filtering¶
New in version 0.2.7.
Whilst the cited
, all
, and notcited
options
will cover many use cases,
sometimes more advanced selection of bibliographic entries is desired.
For this purpose, you can use the filter
option:
.. bibliography:: refs.bib
:list: bullet
:filter: author % "Einstein"
The string specified in the filter option must be a valid Python expression.
Note
The expression is parsed using ast.parse()
and then evaluated using an ast.NodeVisitor
,
so it should be reasonably safe against malicious code.
The filter expression supports:
The boolean operators
and
,or
.The unary operator
not
.The comparison operators
==
,<=
,<
,>=
, and>
.Regular expression matching using the
%
operator, where the left hand side is the string to be matched, and the right hand side is the regular expression. Matching is case insensitive. For example:.. bibliography:: refs.bib :list: bullet :filter: title % "relativity"
would include all entries that have the word “relativity” in the title.
Note
The implementation uses
re.search()
.Single and double quoted strings, such as
'hello'
or"world"
.Set literals, such has
{"hello", "world"}
, as well as the set operators&
,|
,in
, andnot in
.New in version 0.3.0.
Various identifiers, such as:
type
is the entry type, as a lower case string (i.e."inproceedings"
).key
is the entry key, as a lower case string (this is because keys are considered case insensitive).cited
evaluates toTrue
if the entry was cited in the document, and toFalse
otherwise.docname
evaluates to the name of the current document.New in version 0.3.0.
docnames
evaluates to a set of names from which the entry is cited.New in version 0.3.0.
True
andFalse
.author
is the entry string of authors in standard format (last, first), separated by “and”.editor
is similar toauthor
but for editors.Any other (lower case) identifier evaluates to a string containing the value of the correspondingly named field, such as
title
,publisher
,year
, and so on. If the item is missing in the entry then it evaluates to the empty string. Here is an example of how one would typically write an expression to filter on an optional field:.. bibliography:: refs.bib :list: bullet :filter: cited and year and (year <= "2003")
which would include all cited entries that have a year that is less or equal than 2003; any entries that do not specify a year would be omitted.
Local Bibliographies¶
Both the keyprefix
and filter
options can be used
to achieve local bibliographies.
The filter
system for local bibliographies is the simplest one to
use, but offers the least amount of flexibility. In particular, it
can only be used if no citation key is used in more than one
document. This is not always satisfied. If you need to cite the same
reference in multiple documents with references to multiple local
bibliographies, use the keyprefix
system; see
Key Prefixing.
To create a bibliography that includes only citations that were cited in the current document, use the following filter:
.. bibliography:: refs.bib
:filter: docname in docnames
More generally, you can create bibliographies for citations that were cited from specific documents only:
.. bibliography:: refs.bib
:filter: {"doc1", "doc2"} & docnames
This bibliography will include all citations that were cited from
doc1.rst
or doc2.rst
. Another hypothetical example:
.. bibliography:: refs.bib
:filter: cited and ({"doc1", "doc2"} >= docnames)
This bibliography will include all citations that were cited
in doc1.rst
or doc2.rst
, but nowhere else.
Custom Formatting, Sorting, and Labelling¶
pybtex
provides a very powerful way to create and register new
styles, using setuptools entry points,
as documented here: http://pybtex.org/plugins.html
Simply add the following code to your conf.py
:
from pybtex.style.formatting.unsrt import Style as UnsrtStyle
from pybtex.style.template import toplevel # ... and anything else needed
from pybtex.plugin import register_plugin
class MyStyle(UnsrtStyle):
def format_XXX(self, e):
template = toplevel [
# etc.
]
return template.format_data(e)
register_plugin('pybtex.style.formatting', 'mystyle', MyStyle)
Now mystyle
will be available to you as a formatting style:
.. bibliography:: refs.bib
:style: mystyle
An minimal example is available here: https://github.com/mcmtroffaes/sphinxcontrib-bibtex/tree/develop/test/custom_style
The formatting code uses a very intuitive template engine.
The source code for unsrt
provides many great examples:
https://bitbucket.org/pybtex-devs/pybtex/src/master/pybtex/style/formatting/unsrt.py?at=master&fileviewer=file-view-default
The above example only demonstrates a custom formatting style plugin.
It is also possible to register custom author/editor naming plugins
(using the pybtex.style.names
group)
labelling plugins
(using the pybtex.style.labels
group),
and sorting plugins
(using the pybtex.style.sorting
group).
A minimal example demonstrating how to create a custom label style
is available here:
https://github.com/mcmtroffaes/sphinxcontrib-bibtex/tree/develop/test/issue77
Known Issues and Workarounds¶
Tinkerer¶
To use the bibtex extension with Tinkerer,
be sure to specify the bibtex extension first in your conf.py
file:
extensions = ['sphinxcontrib.bibtex', 'tinkerer.ext.blog', 'tinkerer.ext.disqus']
Encoding: Percent Signs¶
When using the LaTeX codec (which is by default), be sure to write
\%
for percent signs at all times (unless your file contains a
genuine comment), otherwise the bibtex lexer will ignore the remainder
of the line.
If you don’t want any LaTeX symbols to be reinterpreted as unicode,
use the option :encoding: utf
(without the latex+
prefix).
Unresolved Citations Across Documents¶
If you cite something that has its bibliography in another document, then, at the moment, the extension may, or may not, realise that it has to add this citation. There are a few ways to work around this problem:
- Use the option
:all:
in thebibliography
directive (which will simply cause all entries to be included). - Ensure that the
bibliography
directive is processed after allcite
s. Sphinx appears to process files in an alphabetical manner. For instance, in case you have only one file containing abibliography
directive, simply name that filezreferences.rst
.
Hopefully, this limitation can be lifted in a future release.
Duplicate Labels When Using :style: plain
¶
With :style: plain
, labels are numerical,
restarting at [1]
for each bibliography
directive.
Consequently, when inserting multiple bibliography
directives
with :style: plain
,
you are bound to get duplicate labels for entries.
There are a few ways to work around this problem:
- Use a single bibliography directive for all your references.
- Use the
labelprefix
option, as documented above. - Use a style that has non-numerical labelling,
such as
:style: alpha
.
Citation Links Broken When Using LaTeX Backend¶
This is a known bug in Sphinx’s latex writer, which has been fixed upstream:
Mismatch Between Output of HTML and LaTeX Backends¶
Sphinx’s LaTeX writer currently collects all citations together, and puts them on a separate page, with a separate title, whereas the html writer puts citations at the location where they are defined. This issue will occur also if you use regular citations in Sphinx: it has nothing to do with sphinxcontrib-bibtex per se.
To get a closer match between the two outputs, you can tell Sphinx to generate a rubric title only for html:
.. only:: html
.. rubric:: References
.. bibliography:: refs.bib
This code could be placed in your zreferences.rst
.
The current aim is to fix Sphinx’s LaTeX writer to match the html output more closely. The issue is tracked here:
https://github.com/mcmtroffaes/sphinxcontrib-bibtex/issues/48