R: Convert Between Bibliography Formats

rbibutils-package {rbibutils} | R Documentation

## Convert Between Bibliography Formats

### Description

Read and write 'BibTeX' files. Convert between bibliography formats, including 'BibTeX', 'BibLaTeX', EndNote, and 'Bibentry'. Includes a port of the 'bibutils' utilities by Chris Putnam <https://sourceforge.net/projects/bibutils/>. Supports all bibliography formats and character encodings implemented in 'bibutils'.

### Details

Package rbibutils provides an R port of the `bibutils` programs plus additional facilities. The main function, `bibConvert`, offers all conversions between bibliography formats supported by library `bibutils`. In addition, package rbibutils converts to and from R's `bibentry` Bibtex-based bibliography format.

The core functionality is provided by the `bibutils` programs which convert between various bibliography formats using a common MODS XML intermediate format, see the source cited below.

Currently we provide the function `bibConvert` for conversion between supported bibliography formats. For complete list of formats supported by the package, see the documentation of the original bibutils library.

`readBib` and `writeBib` import/export BiBTeX files. `readBibentry` and `writeBibentry` import/export R source files in which the references are represented by `bibentry()` calls. These functions were originally just wrappers around `bibConvert`. `readBib` has acquired additional features, including a direct import (without going through `bibConvert`) from BiBTeX files.

All encodings supported by the bibutils library are available for `bibConvert`.

Further functionality may be provided in future releases, in particular, the underlying C functions could be exposed to package authors. Further R wrappers may be added, as well. However, the scope of the package will remain conversion between formats based on `bibutils` and manipulation of the MODS XML intermediate format. rbibutils can be used also as an alternative to package bibtex (Francois 2020). For bibliography management see package RefManager (McLean 2017). For citations in R documentation (Rd or roxygen2) see package Rdpack (Boshnakov 2020).

### Supported input and output formats

Most formats are supported for both input and output, see the listings below. A format supported for input can be converted to any of the output formats.

The input is first converted to MODS XML intermediate, the latter is then converted to the requested output format. Currently the only exception to this is the conversion from `bibentry` to `BibTeX`, for which R provides a `print` method.

#### Input formats

bibentry

  `bibentry` is the native R variant of BibTeX. It can be input from an R source file or from a binary `rds` file. The `"rds"` format is a compressed binary format. The `rds` file should contain a `bibentry` R object, saved from R with `saveRDS`. An R source file should contain one or more bibentry instructions, see `readBibentry` for details of the contents.

BibTeX
BibLaTeX
COPAC format references

  `https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copac`

EndNote (Refer format)
EndNote XML
ISI web of science
Pubmed XML references
Pubmed/National Library of Medicine nbib format
RIS format
MODS XML intermediate

#### Output formats

ADS

  Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Astrophyics Data System, or ADS reference format.

bibentry

  A `bibentry` object. Can be written to a file as a binary (`"rds"`) object or as R source file, see `bibConvert` and `writeBib` for details.

BibTeX
BibLaTeX
EndNote (Refer format)
ISI web of science
MODS XML intermediate
Pubmed/National Library of Medicine nbib format
RIS format
Word 2007 bibliography format

### Note

The `bibutils` library is included in a number of software packages. These include include pandoc and a library for Haskell. Executable programs for conversion are available for Linux distributions but seem not easily available for Windows. Executable and libraries can also be generated out-of-the-box from the `bibutils` disribution (on Windows under MSYS).

### Author(s)

Georgi N. Boshnakov (R code and R port of bibutils), Chris Putnam (author of bibutils library)

### References

Boshnakov GN (2020). “Rdpack: Update and Manipulate Rd Documentation Objects.” doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3925612, R package version 1.0.0.

Francois R. (2020). bibtex: Bibtex Parser. R package version 0.4.2.2. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=bibtex.

McLean MW (2017). “RefManageR: Import and Manage BibTeX and BibLaTeX References in R.” _The Journal of Open Source Software_. doi: 10.21105/joss.00338.

Putnam C. (2003–2020), Library `bibutils`, https://sourceforge.net/projects/bibutils/.

### See Also

`bibConvert for further details and examples`

[Package rbibutils version 2.1.1 Index]