BibTeX and CFF

Entries

Each entry type defines a different type of work. The 14 entry types defined in BibTeX are:

1. @article: An article from a journal or magazine.
2. @book: A book with an explicit publisher.
3. @booklet: A work that is printed and bound, but without a named publisher or sponsoring institution.
4. @conference: Equivalent to @inproceedings, included for Scribe compatibility.
5. @inbook: A part of a book, which may be a chapter (or section) and/or a range of pages.
6. @incollection: A part of a book having its own title.
7. @inproceedings: An article in conference proceedings.
8. @manual: Technical documentation.
9. @mastersthesis: A Master’s thesis.
10. @misc: Use this type when nothing else fits.
11. @phdthesis: A PhD thesis.
12. @proceedings: The proceedings of a conference.
13. @techreport: A report published by a school or other institution, usually numbered within a series.
14. @unpublished: A document having an author and title, but not formally published.

Other implementations similar to BibTeX, such as BibLaTeX (Kime, Wemheuer, and Lehman 2023), expand the definitions of entries to include other types such as online resources, software, or datasets. In BibTeX, these entries should be reclassified as @misc.

In R, the bibentry() base function does not implement @conference. However, we can use @inproceedings, instead given that the definition is identical.

Fields

Similar to the Entries, Patashnik (1988) also provides definitions for each of the possible standard BibTeX fields. While an entry must include certain required fields, it can also include additional fields that might be ignored in the raw implementation of BibTeX. Let’s explore some of these fields:

1. address: Typically represents the address of the publisher or another institution. In the case of @conference, @inproceedings and @proceedings this field indicates where the conference was held.
2. annote: An annotation. Although not used by standard bibliography styles, it may be relevant for producing annotated bibliographies.
3. author: Contains the name(s) of the author(s), following the format described in the LaTeX book (Lamport 1986).
4. booktitle: Refers to the title of a book, part of which is being cited. For @book entries, use the title field instead.
5. chapter: Indicates a chapter (or section) number.
6. crossref: Refers to the database key of the entry being cross-referenced.
7. edition: Specifies the edition of a @book, e.g., "Second". The ordinal should have the first letter capitalized; standard styles convert to lowercase when necessary.
8. editor: Contains the name(s) of editor(s), following the conventions in the LaTeX book (Lamport 1986). If there is also an author field, the editor field specifies the editor of the book or collection where the reference appears.
9. howpublished: Describes how something unusual has been published. The first word should be capitalized.
10. institution: Represents the sponsoring institution of a technical report.
11. journal: Refers to the name of a journal.
12. key: Used for alphabetizing, cross-referencing, and creating a label when author information is missing.
13. month: Indicates the month in which the work was published or, for an unpublished work, when it was written. Use the standard three-letter abbreviation (e.g., jan, feb, mar) as described in Appendix B.1.3 of the LaTeX book (Lamport 1986).
14. note: Provides any additional information that can assist the reader. The first word should be capitalized.
15. number: Represents the number of a journal, magazine, technical report, or a work in a series. An issue of a journal or magazine is usually identified by its volume and number. Organizations issuing technical reports often assign them numbers, and sometimes books are given numbers within a named series.
16. organization: Refers to the organization that sponsors a @conference or publishes a manual.
17. pages: Specifies one or more page numbers or a range of numbers (e.g., 42--111 or 7,41,73--97 or 43+).
18. publisher: Indicates the publisher’s name.
19. school: Provides the name of the school where a thesis was written.
20. series: Specifies the name of a series or set of books. When citing an entire book, the title field gives its title, and an optional series field provides the name of a series or multi-volume set in which the book is published.
21. title: Represents the work’s title.
22. type: Describes the type of a technical report (e.g., “Research Note”).
23. volume: Refers to the volume of a journal or multi-volume book.
24. year: Indicates the year of publication or, for an unpublished work, the year it was written. Generally, it should consist of four numerals (e.g., 1984).

As in the case of the Entries, other implementations such as BibLaTeX recognize additional fields.

In BibTeX, there exists a strict relationship between Entries and Fields. Depending on the type of entry, certain fields are required, while others are optional or even ignored.

The following table summarizes the relationship between Entries and Fields in BibTeX. Required fields are flagged as x, and optional fields are flagged as o. For more detailed information, refer to Patashnik (1988).

It can be seen that only a subset of fields is necessary for any entry. For instance, title, year, and author are either required or optional in almost every entry, whereas crossref, annote, or key are never mandatory.

Entry/Type Crosswalk

For converting general BibTeX entries to CFF types, the following crosswalk is proposed:

The previous crosswalk has the following specifications:

• @book, @inbook, and @incollection are closely related in BibTeX⁴. While @inbook and @incollection both reference parts of a @book, the former is used for citing sections, chapters, pages, or other specific parts, whereas the latter is used for citing parts with a specific title. Since CFF allows keys type:book and collection-type: book, we may utilize a combination of these fields to tag each entry type in CFF accordingly.
• @mastersthesis and @phdthesis would be tagged using a combination of type:thesis and thesis-type.

Additionally, considering that CFF allows for a wide range of values⁵ for the type field, the following conversion would be applied from CFF to BibTeX:

Fields/Key Crosswalk

There is a significant similarity between the definitions and names of certain BibTeX fields and CFF keys. While the equivalence is straightforward in some cases, there are instances where certain keys need to be processed depending on the entry type.

We provide more detail on some of the mappings presented in the table above:

• Some fields are not mapped because there is no clear equivalence with CFF keys (such as annote, crossref, and key). Regarding the type field, the CFF key type corresponds to the identifier of the work (similar to an entry in BibTeX), therefore, BibTeX type won’t be mapped. These fields are always optional in BibTeX.

• For the address field, its intended use in BibTeX varies depending on the entry type (e.g., for @inproceedings, it denotes the address of the conference, while for @mastersthesis/@phdthesis, is the address of the school, etc.). Mapping between BibTeX and CFF becomes more complex when related to institutions, resulting in varying final mappings in CFF. When converting from CFF to BibTeX, we propose to follow the same entry-based logic, using the key location as a fallback value when converting to address.

• In relation with this complexity mentioned above, institution, organization and school would be mapped to institution.

• series would be mapped to collection-title only on those entries that does not requires booktitle. In practice, this means that collection-title would correspond to booktitle for incollection and inproceedings, and in the rest of cases it would correspond to series. A consequence of this is that series information would be lost for incollection and inproceedings, but on those cases is an optional field.

• Regarding series, it would be mapped to collection-title only for those entries that do not require booktitle. In practice, this means that collection-title would correspond to booktitle for @incollection and @inproceedings, while in other cases it would correspond to series. As a consequence, series information would be lost for @incollection and @inproceedings, but in those cases, it is an optional field.

• When converting from CFF to BibTeX, we propose to use date-published as a fallback for extracting month and year fields.

• When pages is provided as a range separated by --, i.e, pages = {3–5} would be coerced as start: 3, end: 5 in CFF.

@article

The crosswalk of @article does not require any special treatment.

Examples

BibTeX entry

@article{article-full,
    title        = {The Gnats and Gnus Document Preparation System},
    author       = {Leslie A. Aamport},
    year         = 1986,
    month        = jul,
    journal      = {{G-Animal's} Journal},
    volume       = 41,
    number       = 7,
    pages        = {73+},
    note         = {This is a full ARTICLE entry}
}

CFF entry

- type: article
  title: The Gnats and Gnus Document Preparation System
  authors:
  - family-names: Aamport
    given-names: Leslie A.
  year: '1986'
  month: '7'
  journal: G-Animal's Journal
  volume: '41'
  issue: '7'
  notes: This is a full ARTICLE entry
  start: 73+

From CFF to BibTeX

@Article{aamport:1986,
  title = {The Gnats and Gnus Document Preparation System},
  author = {Leslie A. Aamport},
  year = {1986},
  month = {jul},
  journal = {G-Animal's Journal},
  volume = {41},
  number = {7},
  pages = {73+},
  note = {This is a full ARTICLE entry},
}

@book / @inbook

In terms of the fields required in BibTeX, the primary difference between @book and @inbook is that @inbook requires a chapter or page field, while @book does not even allow these fields as optional. Therefore, we propose that an @inbook entry in CFF be treated as a @book with the following supplementary fields:

1. section: To denote the specific chapter within the book.
2. start-end: To indicate the range of pages covered by the section.

Additionally, note that in CFF, the series field corresponds to collection-title, and the address field represents the publisher’s address. By last, the key collection-type would be populated with book-series.

There are notable differences in how BibTeX and BibLaTeX handle the @inbook entry (further discussed in the Appendix A). We propose to treat a BibLaTeX @inbook as a BibTeX @incollection.

Examples: @book

BibTeX entry

@book{book-full,
    title        = {Seminumerical Algorithms},
    author       = {Donald E. Knuth},
    year         = 1981,
    month        = 10,
    publisher    = {Addison-Wesley},
    address      = {Reading, Massachusetts},
    series       = {The Art of Computer Programming},
    volume       = 2,
    note         = {This is a full BOOK entry},
    edition      = {Second}
}

CFF entry

- type: book
  title: Seminumerical Algorithms
  authors:
  - family-names: Knuth
    given-names: Donald E.
  year: '1981'
  month: '10'
  publisher:
    name: Addison-Wesley
    address: Reading, Massachusetts
  collection-title: The Art of Computer Programming
  collection-type: book
  volume: '2'
  notes: This is a full BOOK entry
  edition: Second

From CFF to BibTeX

@Book{knuth:1981,
  title = {Seminumerical Algorithms},
  author = {Donald E. Knuth},
  year = {1981},
  month = {oct},
  publisher = {Addison-Wesley},
  address = {Reading, Massachusetts},
  series = {The Art of Computer Programming},
  volume = {2},
  note = {This is a full BOOK entry},
  edition = {Second},
}

Examples: @inbook

BibTeX entry

@inbook{inbook-full,
    title        = {Fundamental Algorithms},
    author       = {Donald E. Knuth},
    year         = 1973,
    month        = 10,
    publisher    = {Addison-Wesley},
    address      = {Reading, Massachusetts},
    series       = {The Art of Computer Programming},
    volume       = 1,
    pages        = {10--119},
    note         = {This is a full INBOOK entry},
    edition      = {Second},
    type         = {Section},
    chapter      = {1.2}
}

CFF entry

- type: book
  title: Fundamental Algorithms
  authors:
  - family-names: Knuth
    given-names: Donald E.
  year: '1973'
  month: '10'
  publisher:
    name: Addison-Wesley
    address: Reading, Massachusetts
  collection-title: The Art of Computer Programming
  collection-type: book
  volume: '1'
  notes: This is a full INBOOK entry
  edition: Second
  section: '1.2'
  start: '10'
  end: '119'

From CFF to BibTeX

@InBook{knuth:1973,
  title = {Fundamental Algorithms},
  author = {Donald E. Knuth},
  year = {1973},
  month = {oct},
  publisher = {Addison-Wesley},
  address = {Reading, Massachusetts},
  series = {The Art of Computer Programming},
  volume = {1},
  pages = {10--119},
  note = {This is a full INBOOK entry},
  chapter = {1.2},
  edition = {Second},
}

@booklet

In @booklet address is mapped to location.

Examples

BibTeX entry

@booklet{booklet-full,
    title        = {The Programming of Computer Art},
    author       = {Jill C. Knvth},
    date         = {1988-03-14},
    month        = feb,
    address      = {Stanford, California},
    note         = {This is a full BOOKLET entry},
    howpublished = {Vernier Art Center}
}

CFF entry

- type: pamphlet
  title: The Programming of Computer Art
  authors:
  - family-names: Knvth
    given-names: Jill C.
  date-published: '1988-03-14'
  month: '2'
  location:
    name: Stanford, California
  notes: This is a full BOOKLET entry
  medium: Vernier Art Center
  year: '1988'

From CFF to BibTeX

@Booklet{knvth:1988,
  title = {The Programming of Computer Art},
  author = {Jill C. Knvth},
  year = {1988},
  month = {feb},
  address = {Stanford, California},
  note = {This is a full BOOKLET entry},
  howpublished = {Vernier Art Center},
  date = {1988-03-14},
}

@conference / @inproceedings

Note that in this case, organization is mapped to institution. Additionally, series would be ignored as there is not clear mapping on CFF for this field.

Examples

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{inproceedings-full,
    title        = {On Notions of Information Transfer in {VLSI} Circuits},
    author       = {Alfred V. Oaho and Jeffrey D. Ullman and Mihalis Yannakakis},
    year         = 1983,
    month        = mar,
    booktitle    = {Proc. Fifteenth Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing},
    publisher    = {Academic Press},
    address      = {Boston},
    series       = {All ACM Conferences},
    number       = 17,
    pages        = {133--139},
    editor       = {Wizard V. Oz and Mihalis Yannakakis},
    organization = {The OX Association for Computing Machinery}
}

CFF entry

- type: conference-paper
  title: On Notions of Information Transfer in VLSI Circuits
  authors:
  - family-names: Oaho
    given-names: Alfred V.
  - family-names: Ullman
    given-names: Jeffrey D.
  - family-names: Yannakakis
    given-names: Mihalis
  year: '1983'
  month: '3'
  collection-title: Proc. Fifteenth Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing
  collection-type: proceedings
  publisher:
    name: Academic Press
  issue: '17'
  editors:
  - family-names: Oz
    given-names: Wizard V.
  - family-names: Yannakakis
    given-names: Mihalis
  institution:
    name: The OX Association for Computing Machinery
  start: '133'
  end: '139'
  conference:
    name: Proc. Fifteenth Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing
    address: Boston

From CFF to BibTeX

@InProceedings{oaho_etall:1983,
  title = {On Notions of Information Transfer in VLSI Circuits},
  author = {Alfred V. Oaho and Jeffrey D. Ullman and Mihalis Yannakakis},
  year = {1983},
  month = {mar},
  booktitle = {Proc. Fifteenth Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing},
  publisher = {Academic Press},
  address = {Boston},
  editor = {Wizard V. Oz and Mihalis Yannakakis},
  number = {17},
  pages = {133--139},
  organization = {The OX Association for Computing Machinery},
}

@incollection

As booktitle is a required field, we propose to map that field to collection-title and the type to generic. Therefore, an @incollection is a type: generic with a collection-title key.

Additionally, series and type would be ignored as there is not clear mapping on CFF for this field.

Examples

BibTeX entry

@incollection{incollection-full,
    title        = {Semigroups of Recurrences},
    author       = {Daniel D. Lincoll},
    year         = 1977,
    month        = sep,
    booktitle    = {High Speed Computer and Algorithm Organization},
    publisher    = {Academic Press},
    address      = {New York},
    series       = {Fast Computers},
    number       = 23,
    pages        = {179--183},
    note         = {This is a full INCOLLECTION entry},
    editor       = {David J. Lipcoll and D. H. Lawrie and A. H. Sameh},
    chapter      = 3,
    type         = {Part},
    edition      = {Third}
}

CFF entry

- type: generic
  title: Semigroups of Recurrences
  authors:
  - family-names: Lincoll
    given-names: Daniel D.
  year: '1977'
  month: '9'
  collection-title: High Speed Computer and Algorithm Organization
  collection-type: collection
  publisher:
    name: Academic Press
    address: New York
  issue: '23'
  notes: This is a full INCOLLECTION entry
  editors:
  - family-names: Lipcoll
    given-names: David J.
  - family-names: Lawrie
    given-names: D. H.
  - family-names: Sameh
    given-names: A. H.
  section: '3'
  edition: Third
  start: '179'
  end: '183'

From CFF to BibTeX

@InCollection{lincoll:1977,
  title = {Semigroups of Recurrences},
  author = {Daniel D. Lincoll},
  year = {1977},
  month = {sep},
  booktitle = {High Speed Computer and Algorithm Organization},
  publisher = {Academic Press},
  address = {New York},
  editor = {David J. Lipcoll and D. H. Lawrie and A. H. Sameh},
  number = {23},
  pages = {179--183},
  note = {This is a full INCOLLECTION entry},
  chapter = {3},
  edition = {Third},
}

@manual

As in the case of @conference / @inproceedings, organization is mapped to institution.

Examples

BibTeX entry

Note that month can’t be coerce to a single integer in the range 1--12 as required on CFF, so it is ignored to avoid validation errors.

@manual{manual-full,
  title        = {The Definitive Computer Manual},
    author       = {Larry Manmaker},
    year         = 1986,
    month        = {apr-may},
    address      = {Silicon Valley},
    note         = {This is a full MANUAL entry},
    organization = {Chips-R-Us},
    edition      = {Silver}
}

CFF entry

- type: manual
  title: The Definitive Computer Manual
  authors:
  - family-names: Manmaker
    given-names: Larry
  year: '1986'
  month: '4'
  notes: This is a full MANUAL entry
  institution:
    name: Chips-R-Us
    address: Silicon Valley
  edition: Silver

From CFF to BibTeX

@Manual{manmaker:1986,
  title = {The Definitive Computer Manual},
  author = {Larry Manmaker},
  year = {1986},
  month = {apr},
  address = {Silicon Valley},
  note = {This is a full MANUAL entry},
  edition = {Silver},
  organization = {Chips-R-Us},
}

@mastersthesis / @phdthesis

In terms of field required on BibTeX, it is identical for both @mastersthesis and @phdthesis.

We propose here to identify each type of thesis using the key thesis-type So if thesis-type contains a regex pattern (?i)(phd) it would be recognized as @phdthesis.

Additionally, school would be mapped to institution.

Examples: @mastersthesis

BibTeX entry

@mastersthesis{mastersthesis-full,
    title        = {Mastering Thesis Writing},
    author       = {Edouard Masterly},
    year         = 1988,
    month        = jun,
    address      = {English Department},
    note         = {This is a full MASTERSTHESIS entry},
    school       = {Stanford University},
    type         = {Master's project}
}

CFF entry

- type: thesis
  title: Mastering Thesis Writing
  authors:
  - family-names: Masterly
    given-names: Edouard
  year: '1988'
  month: '6'
  notes: This is a full MASTERSTHESIS entry
  institution:
    name: Stanford University
    address: English Department
  thesis-type: Master's Thesis

From CFF to BibTeX

@MastersThesis{masterly:1988,
  title = {Mastering Thesis Writing},
  author = {Edouard Masterly},
  year = {1988},
  month = {jun},
  address = {English Department},
  note = {This is a full MASTERSTHESIS entry},
  school = {Stanford University},
}

Examples: @phdthesis

BibTeX entry

@phdthesis{phdthesis-full,
    title        = {Fighting Fire with Fire: Festooning {F}rench Phrases},
    author       = {F. Phidias Phony-Baloney},
    year         = 1988,
    month        = jun,
    address      = {Department of French},
    note         = {This is a full PHDTHESIS entry},
    school       = {Fanstord University},
    type         = {{PhD} Dissertation}
}

CFF entry

- type: thesis
  title: 'Fighting Fire with Fire: Festooning French Phrases'
  authors:
  - family-names: Phony-Baloney
    given-names: F. Phidias
  year: '1988'
  month: '6'
  notes: This is a full PHDTHESIS entry
  institution:
    name: Fanstord University
    address: Department of French
  thesis-type: PhD Thesis

From CFF to BibTeX

@PhdThesis{phonybaloney:1988,
  title = {Fighting Fire with Fire: Festooning French Phrases},
  author = {F. Phidias Phony-Baloney},
  year = {1988},
  month = {jun},
  address = {Department of French},
  note = {This is a full PHDTHESIS entry},
  school = {Fanstord University},
}

@misc

The crosswalk of @misc does not require any special treatment. This entry does not require any field.

Note also that it is mapped to type: generic as @incollection, but in this case booktitle is not even an option, so the proposed definition should cover both @misc and @incollection without problems.

Examples

BibTeX entry

@misc{misc-full,
    title        = {Handing out random pamphlets in airports},
    author       = {Joe-Bob Missilany},
    year         = 1984,
    month        = oct,
    note         = {This is a full MISC entry},
    howpublished = {Handed out at O'Hare}
}

CFF entry

- type: generic
  title: Handing out random pamphlets in airports
  authors:
  - family-names: Missilany
    given-names: Joe-Bob
  year: '1984'
  month: '10'
  notes: This is a full MISC entry
  medium: Handed out at O'Hare

From CFF to BibTeX

@Misc{missilany:1984,
  title = {Handing out random pamphlets in airports},
  author = {Joe-Bob Missilany},
  year = {1984},
  month = {oct},
  note = {This is a full MISC entry},
  howpublished = {Handed out at O'Hare},
}

@proceedings

The proposed model is consistent with @conference / @inproceedings. Note that @proceedings does not prescribe a author field. On this cases, as authors is required on CFF, we would use anonymous⁷ when converting to CFF and omit it on the conversion from CFF to BibTeX.

Examples

BibTeX entry

@proceedings{proceedings-full,
    title        = {Proc. Fifteenth Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing},
    year         = 1983,
    month        = mar,
    publisher    = {Academic Press},
    address      = {Boston},
    series       = {All ACM Conferences},
    number       = 17,
    note         = {This is a full PROCEEDINGS entry},
    editor       = {Wizard V. Oz and Mihalis Yannakakis},
    organization = {The OX Association for Computing Machinery}
}

CFF entry

- type: proceedings
  title: Proc. Fifteenth Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing
  authors:
  - name: anonymous
  year: '1983'
  month: '3'
  publisher:
    name: Academic Press
  collection-title: All ACM Conferences
  collection-type: proceedings
  issue: '17'
  notes: This is a full PROCEEDINGS entry
  editors:
  - family-names: Oz
    given-names: Wizard V.
  - family-names: Yannakakis
    given-names: Mihalis
  institution:
    name: The OX Association for Computing Machinery
  conference:
    name: All ACM Conferences
    address: Boston

From CFF to BibTeX

@Proceedings{oz_etall:1983,
  title = {Proc. Fifteenth Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing},
  year = {1983},
  month = {mar},
  publisher = {Academic Press},
  address = {Boston},
  editor = {Wizard V. Oz and Mihalis Yannakakis},
  series = {All ACM Conferences},
  number = {17},
  note = {This is a full PROCEEDINGS entry},
  organization = {The OX Association for Computing Machinery},
}

@techreport

The crosswalk of @techreport does not require any special treatment.

Examples

BibTeX entry

@techreport{techreport-full,
    title        = {A Sorting Algorithm},
    author       = {Tom Terrific},
    year         = 1988,
    month        = oct,
    address      = {Computer Science Department, Fanstord, California},
    number       = 7,
    note         = {This is a full TECHREPORT entry},
    institution  = {Fanstord University},
    type         = {Wishful Research Result}
}

CFF entry

- type: report
  title: A Sorting Algorithm
  authors:
  - family-names: Terrific
    given-names: Tom
  year: '1988'
  month: '10'
  issue: '7'
  notes: This is a full TECHREPORT entry
  institution:
    name: Fanstord University
    address: Computer Science Department, Fanstord, California

From CFF to BibTeX

@TechReport{terrific:1988,
  title = {A Sorting Algorithm},
  author = {Tom Terrific},
  year = {1988},
  month = {oct},
  address = {Computer Science Department, Fanstord, California},
  number = {7},
  note = {This is a full TECHREPORT entry},
  institution = {Fanstord University},
}

@unpublished

The crosswalk of @unpublished does not require any special treatment.

Examples

BibTeX entry

@unpublished{unpublished-minimal,
    title        = {Lower Bounds for Wishful Research Results},
    author       = {Ulrich Underwood and Ned Net and Paul Pot},
    note         = {Talk at Fanstord University (this is a minimal UNPUBLISHED entry)}
}

CFF entry

- type: unpublished
  title: Lower Bounds for Wishful Research Results
  authors:
  - family-names: Underwood
    given-names: Ulrich
  - family-names: Net
    given-names: Ned
  - family-names: Pot
    given-names: Paul
  notes: Talk at Fanstord University (this is a minimal UNPUBLISHED entry)

From CFF to BibTeX

@Unpublished{underwood_etall,
  title = {Lower Bounds for Wishful Research Results},
  author = {Ulrich Underwood and Ned Net and Paul Pot},
  note = {Talk at Fanstord University (this is a minimal UNPUBLISHED entry)},
}