General ⇒ Abbreviating reference lists within text

[latexbird]

Hello,

Apologies if this has been asked before; I couldn't find anything about it, probably because I have some terminology wrong. I am using an ieeetr bibliography with bibtex files and I cannot figure out if there is a way to display lists of refs within the text in an abbreviated fashion. In particular, instead of having, say
[40, 41, 42, 3, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49]
I would like to have
[40-42, 3, 43-49]
or if necessary,
[3, 40-49].

Do you know if there is any way to do this?

Thank you!
latexbird

[latexbird]

To clarify, I'm open to any reference format that uses increasing numbers like ieeetr. I don't have to use ieeetr, that's just what I'm using now. I've read the documentation on ieeetr and didn't find any way to achieve what I'm hoping for.

[Bartman]

I would like to recommend you to read the description of the numeric-comp style of the biblatex package. There are two possibilities mentioned, which should produce the desired output when using the ieeetr style.

Because of your addendum, I would advise you to use the biblatex style.