[Refdb-devel] bib2ris spaces in author/editor names

[Damien Jade Duff]

Dear Markus

bib2ris is rather neat isn't it? One thing: at present it does not put
spaces between names in the author field, so that

author = "John R. Koza and Matthew J. Streeter and Martin A. Keane",

becomes

AU - Koza,JohnR.
AU - Streeter,MatthewJ.
AU - Keane,MartinA.

I have tested a fix and it seems to work. I wonder if you would give it
some oversight and update bib2ris.c for me.

00004: $Id: bib2ris.c,v 1.13.2.2 2005/07/29 21:15:34 mhoenicka Exp $

...

01326: /*** <djd 20060412> */
01327: if(j < ptr_partlist->part_len[BTN_FIRST]){
01328: if (navail >= 1) {
01329: strcat(namestring, " ");
01330: navail--;
01331: }
01332: else {
01333: goto haveall;
01334: }
01335: }
01336: /*** </djd 20060412> */

Incidentally, does your planned extension to RIS have a place to put
author contact details?

Also, how easy would it be for me to give bib2ris the ability to convert
abstract and keyword information? (I believe these become N2 and KW
fields in RIS)

Thanks for your time
And regards
Damien Jade Duff

[Markus Hoenicka]

Hi Damien,

Post by Damien Jade Duff
becomes
AU - Koza,JohnR.
AU - Streeter,MatthewJ.
AU - Keane,MartinA.
I have tested a fix and it seems to work. I wonder if you would give it
some oversight and update bib2ris.c for me.
00004: $Id: bib2ris.c,v 1.13.2.2 2005/07/29 21:15:34 mhoenicka Exp $
...
01326: /*** <djd 20060412> */
01327: if(j < ptr_partlist->part_len[BTN_FIRST]){
01328: if (navail >= 1) {
01329: strcat(namestring, " ");
01330: navail--;
01331: }
01332: else {
01333: goto haveall;
01334: }
01335: }
01336: /*** </djd 20060412> */

I'll give it a try and update bib2ris.c asap.

Post by Damien Jade Duff
Incidentally, does your planned extension to RIS have a place to put
author contact details?

I'm still contemplating. It seems more practical to associate the contact info
with an author rather than with a reference, but what if an author moves (which
isn't that rare, believe me :-( ). We'd need another table that holds all
contacts for a particular author and store the information which contact
applies in the reference.

Post by Damien Jade Duff
Also, how easy would it be for me to give bib2ris the ability to convert
abstract and keyword information? (I believe these become N2 and KW
fields in RIS)

It should be extremely easy (although I haven't tested this in ages). Simply add
something like:

nsf_abstract N2
nsf_keyword KW

to your ~/.bib2risrc, assuming that you use "ABSTRACT" and "KEYWORD" in your
bibtex data to denote abstracts and keywords, respectively. See also:

http://refdb.sourceforge.net/manual/sect-bibtoris.html

for some additional hints.

regards,
Markus

[Damien Jade Duff]

Post by Markus Hoenicka

Post by Damien Jade Duff
Incidentally, does your planned extension to RIS have a place to put
author contact details?

I'm still contemplating. It seems more practical to associate the contact info
with an author rather than with a reference, but what if an author moves (which
isn't that rare, believe me :-( ). We'd need another table that holds all
contacts for a particular author and store the information which contact
applies in the reference.

Gosh, it seems complicated. Not really the kind of sophistication you'd
expect in a reference database really.

Optimally you'd want to chuck it into your contact database, whatever
that is, and throw a link into your reference author I suppose, but now
we're talking 3rd party interfaces... now we're talking crazy talk.

I'd leave it out if I were you!

Peace
Damien

[Markus Hoenicka]

Hi Damien,

Post by Damien Jade Duff

Post by Markus Hoenicka
I'm still contemplating. It seems more practical to associate the contact info
with an author rather than with a reference, but what if an author moves (which
isn't that rare, believe me :-( ). We'd need another table that holds all
contacts for a particular author and store the information which contact
applies in the reference.

Gosh, it seems complicated. Not really the kind of sophistication you'd
expect in a reference database really.
Optimally you'd want to chuck it into your contact database, whatever
that is, and throw a link into your reference author I suppose, but now
we're talking 3rd party interfaces... now we're talking crazy talk.

I just recalled that the contact information given in a reference is
not always associated with the first author of a paper. This makes it
impossible to store the contact info with the author name, as
electronic references do not record which author the contact info
belongs to. The contact info has to stay with the reference, just as
it has done so far.

regards,
Markus