refer
Preprocesses documents with bibliographic references
SYNOPSIS
refer [-e] [-n] [-p database] [-a] [-b] [-c flag] [-i] [-l field] [-k field] [-s fields] [files]
PARAMETERS
-a
Reverse the order of appearance of citations in the document.
-b
Bare mode; do not insert any formatting commands, just output the references.
-c flag
Set citation formatting flag.
-e
Accumulate references in the order they appear in the input, using the last matching item in the database. Errors are reported.
-i
Ignore case when searching the database.
-k field
Accumulate references in the order they appear in the input, but only use the specified field.
-l field
Specify the default label field.
-n
Do not sort references.
-p database
Specify a bibliographic database to search. If not specified, the environment variable REFER will be used; otherwise the file 'refer' will be used.
-s fields
Sort references by the specified fields. Example: -s AU,TI sorts by author and then title.
files
Input files containing citations.
DESCRIPTION
The refer command is a preprocessor for formatting references in documents. It searches a bibliographic database for references matching citations in a document, and formats them according to a specified style. It is commonly used in conjunction with troff or nroff to create formatted documents with bibliographies.
CITATION FORMAT
Citations in the document are typically enclosed in `.[` and `.]' delimiters. The contents within these delimiters are used to query the bibliographic database. The refer command then replaces the citation with the formatted reference.
DATABASE FORMAT
Bibliographic databases typically follow a specific format, with fields like author, title, journal, etc. identified by specific markers or delimiters.