BibTeX, biblatex and biber ⇒ BibExport Shell Script does absolutely nothing

[jossojjos]

Hello all

Strange ... when I run bibexport.sh on my .aux file, it does absolutely nothing, leaving me little clues as to how to find out what goes wrong.
It just sits there in the terminal, doing nothing, not even creating intermediate files. The debug option does not give more information either.

Any ideas ?
I guess it will be difficult to draw your attention to this obscure problem

thanks in advance,
jos

[localghost]

[…] when I run bibexport.sh on my .aux file, it does absolutely nothing, leaving me little clues as to how to find out what goes wrong. […]

When I just type bibexport on the terminal, I get the following output.

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thorsten@sol:~> bibexport
bibexport: a tool to extract BibTeX entries out of .bib files.
usage: bibexport [-h|v|n|c|a|d|s|t] [-b|e|es|ec|o|r file] file...

Basic options:
--------------
 -a, --all                  export the entire .bib files
 -o bib, --output-file bib  write output to file       [default: bibexport.bib]
 -t, --terse                operate silently
 -h, --help                 print this message and exit
 -v, --version              print version number and exit

Advanced options:
-----------------
 -b bst, --bst bst          specifies the .bst style file [default: export.bst]
 -c, --crossref             preserve crossref field               [default: no]
 -n, --no-crossref          remove crossref'd entries             [default: no]
 -e bib, --extra bib        extra .bib file to be used (crossrefs and strings)
 -es bib, --extras bib      extra .bib file to be used (for strings)
 -ec bib, --extrac bib      extra .bib file to be used (for crossrefs)
 -p, --preamble             write a preamble at beginning of output
 -r bib, --replace bib      replace .bib file(s) in the .aux file
 -d, --debug                create intermediate files but don't run BibTeX
thorsten@sol:~>

So your approach of running it on an *.aux file seems to be wrong.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten

[jossojjos]

Why do you think so ?

The bibexport manual says:

extracting \cited references of a document, also including cross-references:
bibexport.sh -o <result>.bib <file>.aux

But when I run

Code: Select all

bibexport.sh -o sisters.bib sisters.aux 

nothing happens ...

PS just typing "bibexport.sh" give the same message as the one you got.

[localghost]

Maybe I misunderstood something. But the first line of the output I obtained says that it extracts the entries out of *.bib files. I didn't take a look at its manual so I wasn't aware of other capabilities of this tool.

Your example shall extract cited references from an *.aux file. This requires that you have citations in your document (by the \cite command or similar). Otherwise you will obtain nothing.

I never used this script so I can't advice any further with out a proper minimal example. Perhaps somebody else can.

[cgnieder]

This is just a shot in the dark: does your aux file contain any \citation commands? I'm asking since for example biblatex with biber does not write these in the aux file…

Regards

[jossojjos]

OK, here's the example. Here's what I did :

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pdflatex test.tex 
bibtex test
pdflatex test.tex 

to check that bibtex works correctly (I incuded test.pdf)

Code: Select all

bibexport.sh -o test.bib test.aux 

nothing happens ...

I keep thinking I just did somthing very stupid wrong, but haven't the faintest idea about what it could be.

[jossojjos]

Hmmm, I reinstalled everything (just replacing the old bst files by freshly unzipped ones), now no problem anymore... unfortunately I didn't save the old ones, so no way to find out what the trouble actually was.

Well, I guess that's life, but at least it works now !