regenbib

(Re-)generate tidy .bib files from online sources

Motivation

The gist of regenbib is as follows. Instead of manually maintaining a references.bib file with a bunch of entries like this ...

@inproceedings{streamlet,
    author = "Chan, Benjamin Y. and Shi, Elaine",
    title = "Streamlet: Textbook Streamlined Blockchains",
    booktitle = "{AFT}",
    pages = "1--11",
    publisher = "{ACM}",
    year = "2020"
}

... you should maintain a references.yaml file with corresponding entries like that:

entries:
- bibtexid: streamlet
  dblpid: conf/aft/ChanS20

The tool regenbib can then automatically (re-)generate the references.bib from the references.yaml in a consistent way by retrieving high-quality metadata information from the corresponding online source (in the example above: dblp's entry conf/aft/ChanS20).

The tool regenbib-import helps to maintain the references.yaml file. Using LaTeX's .aux file, it determines entries that are cited but are currently missing from the references.yaml file. It then helps the user determine an appropriate online reference through an interactive lookup right from the command line. In the lookup process, an old (possibly messy) references.bib file can be used to obtain starting points for the search (eg, title/author in an old references.bib entry can be used to lookup the paper on dblp).

See the usage example below for details.

Installation

If your LaTeX project already has a Python virtual environment, activate it. Otherwise, setup and activate a virtual environment like this:

$ python -m venv venv
$ echo "venv/" >> .gitignore
$ source venv/bin/activate

Then install regenbib:

$ pip install git+https://github.com/joachimneu/regenbib.git

You should now have the commands regenbib and regenbib-import available to you.

Example Usage

Suppose we have an old references.bib file with this entry (and suppose it does not have a corresponding entry in our references.yaml file):

@misc{streamlet,
  author = {Chan and Shi},
  title  = {Streamlet Textbook Streamlined Blockchains}
}

We can easily import a corresponding entry to our references.yaml file with regenbib-import:

$ regenbib-import --bib references.bib --aux _build/main.aux --yaml references.yaml
Importing entry: streamlet
-> Current entry: Entry('misc',
  fields=[
    ('title', 'Streamlet Textbook Streamlined Blockchains')],
  persons=OrderedCaseInsensitiveDict([('author', [Person('Chan'), Person('Shi')])]))
-> Import method? [0=skip, 1=dblp-free-search, 2=arxiv-manual-id, 3=eprint-manual-id, 4=current-entry, 5=dblp-search-title, 6=dblp-search-authorstitle]: 6
-----> The search returned 2 matches:
-----> (1)	Benjamin Y. Chan, Elaine Shi:
		Streamlet: Textbook Streamlined Blockchains. AFT 2020
		https://doi.org/10.1145/3419614.3423256  https://dblp.org/rec/conf/aft/ChanS20
-----> (2)	Benjamin Y. Chan, Elaine Shi:
		Streamlet: Textbook Streamlined Blockchains. IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch. (2020) 2020
		https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/088  https://dblp.org/rec/journals/iacr/ChanS20
-----> Intended publication? [0=abort]: 1

As you see, regenbib-import uses the messy/incomplete information from the old references.bib file to help us quickly determine the appropriate dblp entry. This adds the following entry to references.yaml:

entries:
- bibtexid: streamlet
  dblpid: conf/aft/ChanS20

We can then re-generate a tidy references.bib file based on the references.yaml file:

$ regenbib --yaml references.yaml --bib references.bib
DblpEntry(bibtexid='streamlet', dblpid='conf/aft/ChanS20')
Entry('inproceedings',
  fields=[
    ('title', 'Streamlet: Textbook Streamlined Blockchains'),
    ('booktitle', '{AFT}'),
    ('pages', '1--11'),
    ('publisher', '{ACM}'),
    ('year', '2020')],
  persons=OrderedCaseInsensitiveDict([('author', [Person('Chan, Benjamin Y.'), Person('Shi, Elaine')])]))
$ cat references.bib
@inproceedings{streamlet,
    author = "Chan, Benjamin Y. and Shi, Elaine",
    title = "Streamlet: Textbook Streamlined Blockchains",
    booktitle = "{AFT}",
    pages = "1--11",
    publisher = "{ACM}",
    year = "2020"
}

Supported Entry Types & Online Metadata Sources

See entry types in regenbib/store.py:

• dblp
• arXiv
• IACR ePrint
• Raw .bib entry