doi2bib3 1.0.0

Fetch BibTeX from DOI, arXiv ID, journal URL and article title

doi2bib3

doi2bib3 is a small Python utility to fetch BibTeX metadata for a DOI or to resolve arXiv identifiers to DOIs and fetch their BibTeX entries. It accepts DOI inputs, DOI URLs, arXiv IDs/URLs (modern and legacy), publisher landing pages, and uses a sequence of resolution strategies to return a BibTeX string. This tool combines the features of doi2bib and doi2bib2.

Key behaviors

• Provides bibtex entry for DOI and arXiv links.
• Automatically detects arXiv inputs (e.g. 2411.08091, arXiv:2411.08091, or https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.08091) and queries the arXiv API for a DOI.
• For non-arXiv inputs: attempts DOI normalization, content negotiation at doi.org, Crossref transform, and as a last resort a Crossref bibliographic search.
• Supports publisher landing pages, including DOI links embedded in URL/HTML metadata and ScienceDirect article links whose URL contains an Elsevier PII.
• Normalizes BibTeX output, including bundled APS/Nature journal abbreviation mappings and APS article-number enrichment when Crossref metadata provides it.
• Full pipeline documentation (input -> output): docs/ALGORITHM.md
• Diagram version of the pipeline: docs/ALGORITHM_VISUALS.md

A cross-platform GUI frontend is available: Check out QuickBib and its webapp.

Installation

Install from pypi

pip install --user doi2bib3

Arch Linux

In Arch Linux you can install it from the AUR with the command yay -S python-doi2bib3.

Ubuntu

You can use our official PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apandada1/quickbib
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-doi2bib3

Installing from source

Create a virtual environment and install runtime dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/archisman-panigrahi/doi2bib3.git
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Install the package for local development:

pip install -e .

CLI usage

The CLI accepts a single positional identifier and an optional -o/--out path to save the BibTeX output. When installed, the package installs a console script named doi2bib3 (configured in pyproject.toml). From the repository root you can run the local script wrapper at scripts/doi2bib3.

# using the local wrapper script from repo root
python scripts/doi2bib3 <identifier> [-o OUT]

# or when installed as console script
doi2bib3 <identifier> -o references.bib

Examples

Fetch by DOI (bare DOI or DOI URL):

doi2bib3 10.1038/nphys1170
doi2bib3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1170

ArXiv inputs (detected automatically):

doi2bib3 https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.08091
doi2bib3 arxiv.org/abs/2411.08091
doi2bib3 www.arxiv.org/abs/2411.08091
doi2bib3 arXiv:2411.08091
doi2bib3 2411.08091
doi2bib3 hep-th/9901001

Name of the paper (includes fuzzy search):

doi2bib3 "Projected Topological Branes"

Publisher/article pages:

doi2bib3 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2305943120
doi2bib3 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003491605000096?via%3Dihub

Save to a file:

doi2bib3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1170 -o paper.bib

Note: If the tool is not installed, you can run python scripts/doi2bib3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1170.

Programmatic usage

Public API

The Python API exposes one primary function:

• doi2bib3.fetch_bibtex(identifier: str, timeout: int = 15) -> str

Behavior:

• Accepts DOI, DOI URL, arXiv ID/URL, publisher URL, or article-title text.
• Resolves input to a DOI using arXiv and/or Crossref when needed.
• Resolves ScienceDirect article URLs by extracting the Elsevier PII and querying Elsevier article metadata before falling back to generic URL/HTML DOI extraction.
• Fetches BibTeX via DOI content negotiation (with Crossref fallback).
• Returns normalized BibTeX output (same formatting as CLI output).
• Full step-by-step algorithm: docs/ALGORITHM.md

Example:

from doi2bib3 import fetch_bibtex

bib = fetch_bibtex('https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2305943120')
print(bib)

Programmatic CLI entry

Use subprocess with scripts/doi2bib3 (or installed doi2bib3 command) for automated CLI tests.

Internal module layout

• doi2bib3/backend.py: input resolution and network fetch logic
• doi2bib3/normalize.py: BibTeX normalization/transforms
• doi2bib3/io.py: file output helpers
• scripts/doi2bib3: command-line argument parsing and output handling

License

This project is distributed under the GNU General Public License v3 (GPL-3.0-only).

Acknowledgements

Parts of the code and documentation were assisted by copilot and codex.