BibTeX, biblatex and biber ⇒ biblatex-apa despair

[mmpsy]

Hello,
I hope I'm asking at the right place ... I've been desperately trying to use biblatex-apa. I can use successfully:
usepackage[style=numeric-comp,bibstyle=numeric,hyperref=true,%
backref=false,sorting=none,abbreviate=true]{biblatex}

... but all attempts to use:
usepackage[american]{babel}
usepackage{csquotes}
usepackage[style=apa]{biblatex}
DeclareLanguageMapping{american}{american-apa}

result in the following 'undefined' output errors:
...
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/biblatex/biblatex.sty
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/biblatex/biblatex.def) (./apa.bbx
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/biblatex/bbx/standard.bbx)

! Package keyval Error: alldates undefined.

See the keyval package documentation for explanation.
Type H <return> for immediate help.
...

l.185 ... alldates=apalong}

? H
Try typing <return> to proceed.
If that doesn't work, type X <return> to quit.
? H
Sorry, I already gave what help I could...
Maybe you should try asking a human?
An error might have occurred before I noticed any problems.
``If all else fails, read the instructions.''
?

! LaTeX Error: \abx@macro@doi+eprint+url undefined.
See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type H <return> for immediate help.
...

l.1634 \renewbibmacro*{doi+eprint+url}
?

and many more along the same line. I have followed the instructions in biblatex-apa.pdf, and especially putting in the right directories, then running texhash, on:
<texmf>/tex/latex/biblatex/cbx/apa.cbx
<texmf>/tex/latex/biblatex/bbx/apa.bbx
<texmf>/tex/latex/biblatex/lbx/<language>-apa.lbx


I'd be most grateful for some help as I need to reorganise and submit my PhD thesis in APA style within the next two to four weeks ...

BW, Michael.

[frabjous]

I suspect some package on your installation is out of date. What LaTeX distribution are you using and can you update it?

Could you create a minimal working example, post it here, and also do a run putting \listfiles at the beginning of your code, and then post the files it inserts near the end of the .log file. Mine looks like this for a minimal example using your code with the article class.

Code: Select all

 *File List*
 article.cls    2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class
  size10.clo    2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX file (size option)
   babel.sty    2008/07/06 v3.8l The Babel package
 english.ldf    2005/03/30 v3.3o English support from the babel system
csquotes.sty    2010/11/19 v5.1 context-sensitive quotations
etoolbox.sty    2011/01/03 v2.1 e-TeX tools for LaTeX
    etex.sty    1998/03/26 v2.0 eTeX basic definition package (PEB)
  keyval.sty    1999/03/16 v1.13 key=value parser (DPC)
csquotes.def    2010/11/19 v5.1 csquotes generic definitions
csquotes.cfg    
biblatex.sty    2011/01/08 v1.1a programmable bibliographies
  logreq.sty    2010/08/04 v1.0 xml request logger
  logreq.def    2010/08/04 v1.0 logreq spec v1.0
  ifthen.sty    2001/05/26 v1.1c Standard LaTeX ifthen package (DPC)
     url.sty    2006/04/12  ver 3.3  Verb mode for urls, etc.
blx-compat.def    2011/01/08 v1.1a biblatex generic compatibility
biblatex.def    2011/01/08 v1.1a biblatex generic definitions
standard.bbx    2011/01/08 v1.1a biblatex bibliography style
     apa.bbx    
     apa.cbx    
biblatex.cfg    
 english.lbx    2011/01/08 v1.1a biblatex localization
american.lbx    2011/01/08 v1.1a biblatex localization
american-apa.lbx    
 scratch.bbl
 ***********

[mmpsy]

Thanks - you are right, biblatex is only 0.8i :
...
etex.sty 1998/03/26 v2.0 eTeX basic definition package (PEB)
csquotes.def 2009/09/23 v4.4c csquotes generic definitions
csquotes.cfg 2009/05/30 v4.4 csquotes configuration
biblatex.sty 2009/09/20 v0.8i programmable bibliographies
biblatex.def 2009/09/20 v0.8i biblatex generic definitions
standard.bbx 2009/07/04 v0.8e biblatex bibliography style
apa.bbx
apa.cbx
...
This is what KPackageKit, or apt-get, go up to on my kubuntu 10.04; I installed biblatex-1.1a.tds after Philip Kime's advice, and ran texhash, but the system still 'sees' the 0.8i ...

:-! M.

[frabjous]

Did you try uninstalling the Kubuntu biblatex through apt (sudo apt-get purge biblatex)?

A more radical solution would be to remove all the (outdated) Debian TeXlive 2009 packages and then install TeXlive 2010 directly. (Sometimes you then have to resort to tricks to satisfy dependencies for apt, but it's worth it.) That way you'll get the TeXlive package manager, tlmgr, and can use it to update packages whenever you want.

[mmpsy]

I removed biblatex with the KPackageKit and tried the semiautomatic installation of 1.1a; despite running texhash now pdflatex can't find biblatex.sty at all...
:-! M.

[frabjous]

Where did you extract the files from biblatex1.1a.tds.zip?

[mmpsy]

I tried
/usr/local/share/texmf/
and also
/usr/share/texmf-texlive/

It didn't work - texhash appeared to work, but pdflatex still didn't find the stuff. I therefore gave up on the semiauto installation, got biblatex-1.1a.tar.gz and this installed fine manually. A bit laborious though, as per README file. However my tex file still didn't compile, with error message saying that etoolbox.sty was out of date and that at least v 2.1 was needed. I have to say that it was really nice to be told, rather than get another cryptic error message! I then installed etoolbox version 2.1, which appears only to have come out last week (file is dated 2011/01/03 !) and now the APA bibliography compiled for the first time!

Thanks for your advice re TeXLive 2010, your caveat of "Sometimes you then have to resort to tricks to satisfy dependencies for apt" scared me though -- I hope that the repository people will catch up and I won't have to -- after all 10.04 is meant to be a 'long term support' version.

Thanks again for all your help, it was fantastic!
Michael.

PS Do I have to do anything to wrap up the thread now ?

[frabjous]

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. (K)Ubuntu gets its TeXlive packages from Debian. Canonical has nothing to do with packaging them, and so 10.04 being "LTS" really doesn't mean anything in this case. (And in general, Canonical seems to think it's easier to provide suppot when packages don't change much over the release cycle.) The packages are done by volunteers, I believe, and if past practice has been any indication, they will only bother packaging every other release. So there was a Debian package for TeXlive 2007, but they never made one for TeXlive 2008. They did make one for TL 2009, but won't for TL 2010. (Or if they were going to, they would have done so already.) They probably will for TeXLive 2011, but I certainly wouldn't count on that being ready for your deadline.

I think you can have both TL 2009 and TL 2010 installed side-by-side if you don't want to worry about dependencies. You'll just need to make sure that the binaries for TL 2010 appear earlier in your $PATH so they're called instead of those for TL 2009.

If you do want to try just having TL 2010, the "tricks" I alluded to basically involve creating a "dummy" package which tells apt that certain packages are installed, without actually installing them. The basic process is described in this TeXblog post (the post is a couple years old and involves TL 2008 rather than TL 2010, but the basic process is the same). You just need to figure out which packages you need to "fake" having installed, and this would depend on what other packages you have which depend on TeXlive. Probably this would just be your TeX editor -- are you using Kile?

Unfortunately, I personally use Arch Linux, not Ubuntu. I have to do the same kind of thing there to use TL 2010, but since it's a different package manager, it's a little different, or else I could give more specific instructions.

Code: Select all

PS Do I have to do anything to wrap up the thread now ?

When you consider the post "solved", you should edit the first post of the thread and choose the greek checkmark icon. (But if you do decide to try to install TL 2010