[comp.text] Bibtex *.bib path

zag@acm.princeton.EDU (Gianluigi Zanetti) (01/18/90)

	I am trying to coerce BibTeX (0.99c) to read *.bib file from the directory I want rather
	than the one it wants (i.e., the current directory). Playing with TEXINPUTS and TEXBIB did not work.
	I guess I am missing something obvious. Any suggestions ?

			gianluigi

	Gianluigi Zanetti (zag@acm.princeton.edu) ((609) 258-5375)
	ACM, Princeton University, 
	Fine Hall Rm-207,
	Washington Road,
	Princeton NJ 08544

weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Joe Weening) (01/19/90)

There has been a lot of confusion about this, because BibTeX is often
distributed with incomplete or incorrect documentation.  Here is the
current, official BibTeX man page for Unix (written by Oren Patashnik
and yours truly), which everyone should install if they have an older
one or don't have a BibTeX man page.  It has been submitted to the
University of Washington for the Unix TeX distribution.


.TH BIBTEX 1 
.SH NAME
bibtex \- make a LaTeX bibliography
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B bibtex auxname
.SH DESCRIPTION
BibTeX reads the top-level auxiliary
.I (.aux)
file that was output during the running of
.BR latex (1)
and creates a bibliography
.I (.bbl)
file that will be incorporated into the document on subsequent runs of LaTeX.
The auxname on the command line must be given without the
.I .aux
extension.
.PP
BibTeX looks up, in the bibliographic database
.I (.bib)
files,
the entries specified by the \\cite and \\nocite commands
in the LaTeX source file.
It formats the information from those entries
according to instructions in the style
.I (.bst)
file,
and it outputs the results to the
.I .bbl
file.
.PP
The LaTeX manual (aka
.I LaTeX - A Document Preparation System,
by Leslie Lamport)
explains what a LaTeX source file must contain to work with BibTeX.
Appendix B of the LaTeX manual describes the format of the
.I .bib
files.
The "BibTeXing" document describes extensions and details of this format,
and it gives other useful hints for using BibTeX.

BibTeX on Unix incorporates the path-searching mechanism
described in the man page for
.BR tex (1).
As of the August 1988 web2c version,
BibTeX searches the TEXINPUTS path
(if it's defined, else a system-dependent default) for
.I .bst
files, BIBINPUTS for
.I .bib
files, and no path for
.I .aux
files.
.PP
.SH FILES
.TP 20
btxdoc.tex
"BibTeXing" \- LaTeXable documentation for general BibTeX users
.TP
btxhak.tex
"Designing BibTeX Styles" \- LaTeXable documentation for style designers
.TP
btxdoc.bib
database file for those two documents
.TP
xampl.bib
database file giving examples of all standard entry types
.TP
btxbst.doc
template file and documentation for the standard styles
.PP
All these files should be available
in the same directory somewhere on the system.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR latex (1),
.BR tex (1).
--
Joe Weening                                Computer Science Dept.
weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU          Stanford University