man Biber (3): main module for biber, a bibtex replacement for users of biblatex

SYNOPSIS

use Biber;
my $biber = Biber->new();
$biber->parse_ctrlfile("example.bcf");
$biber->prepare;

METHODS

new

    Initialize the Biber object, optionally passing named options as arguments.

display_problems

   Output summary of warnings/errors before exit

biber_tempdir

    my $sections= $biber->biber_tempdir
    Returns a File::Temp directory object for use in various things

sections

    my $sections= $biber->sections
    Returns a Biber::Sections object describing the bibliography sections

add_sections

    Adds a Biber::Sections object. Used externally from, e.g. biber

sortlists

    my $sortlists= $biber->sortlists
    Returns a Biber::SortLists object describing the bibliography sorting lists

set_output_obj

    Sets the object used to output final results
    Must be a subclass of Biber::Output::base

get_preamble

    Returns the current preamble as an array ref

get_output_obj

    Returns the object used to output final results

set_current_section

    Sets the current section number that we are working on to a section number

get_current_section

    Gets the current section number that we are working on

tool_mode_setup

  Fakes parts of the control file for tool mode

parse_ctrlfile

    This method reads the control file
    generated by biblatex to work out the various biblatex options.
    See Constants.pm for defaults and example of the data structure being built here.

process_setup

   Place to put misc pre-processing things needed later

process_setup_tool

   Place to put misc pre-processing things needed later for tool mode

resolve_alias_refs

  Resolve aliases in xref/crossref/xdata which take keys as values to their real keys
  We use set_datafield as we are overriding the alias in the datasource

process_citekey_aliases

 Remove citekey aliases from citekeys as they don't point to real
 entries.

nullable_check

  Check entries for nullable fields

instantiate_dynamic

    This instantiates any dynamic entries so that they are available
    for processing later on. This has to be done before most all other
    processing so that when we call $section->bibentry($key), as we
    do many times in the code, we don't die because there is a key but
    no Entry object.

resolve_xdata

    Resolve xdata entries

cite_setmembers

    Promotes set member to cited status

process_interentry

    $biber->process_interentry
    This does several things:
    1. Records the set information for use later
    2. Ensures proper inheritance of data from cross-references.
    3. Ensures that crossrefs/xrefs that are directly cited or cross-referenced
       at least mincrossrefs times are included in the bibliography.

validate_datamodel

  Validate bib data according to a datamodel
  Note that we are validating the internal Biber::Entries
  after they have been created from the datasources so this is
  datasource neutral, as it should be. It is here to enforce
  adherence to what biblatex expects.

process_entries_pre

    Main processing operations, to generate metadata and entry information
    This method is automatically called by C<prepare>.
    Here we generate the "namehash" and the strings for
    "labelname", "labelyear", "labelalpha", "sortstrings", etc.
    Runs prior to uniqueness processing

process_entries_post

    More processing operations, to generate things which require uniqueness
    information like namehash
    Runs after uniqueness processing

process_singletitle

    Track seen work combination for generation of singletitle

process_extrayear

    Track labelname/year combination for generation of extrayear

process_extratitle

    Track labelname/labeltitle combination for generation of extratitle

process_extratitleyear

    Track labeltitle/labelyear combination for generation of extratitleyear

process_sets

    Postprocess set entries
    Checks for common set errors and enforces 'dataonly' for set members

process_labelname

    Generate labelname information.

process_labeldate

    Generate labeldate information

process_labeltitle

  Generate labeltitle
  Note that this is not conditionalised on the biblatex "labeltitle"
  as labeltitle should always be output since all standard styles need it.
  Only extratitle is conditionalised on the biblatex "labeltitle" option.

process_fullhash

    Generate fullhash

process_namehash

    Generate namehash

process_pername_hashes

    Generate per_name_hashes

process_visible_names

    Generate the visible name information.
    This is used in various places and it is useful to have it generated in one place.

process_labelalpha

    Generate the labelalpha and also the variant for sorting

process_extraalpha

    Generate the extraalpha information

process_presort

    Put presort fields for an entry into the main Biber bltx state
    so that it is all available in the same place since this can be
    set per-type and globally too.

process_lists

    Sort and filter lists for a section

check_list_filter

    Run an entry through a list filter. Returns a boolean.

generate_sortinfo

    Generate information for sorting

uniqueness

    Generate the uniqueness information needed when creating .bbl

create_uniquename_info

    Gather the uniquename information as we look through the names
    What is happening in here is the following:
    We are registering the number of occurences of each name, name+init and fullname
    within a specific context. For example, the context is "global" with uniquename < 5
    and "name list" for uniquename=5 or 6. The keys we store to count this are the most specific
    information for the context, so, for uniquename < 5, this is the full name and for
    uniquename=5 or 6, this is the complete list of full names. These keys have values in a hash
    which are ignored. They serve only to accumulate repeated occurences with the context
    and we don't care about this and so the values are a useful sinkhole for such repetition.
    For example, if we find in the global context a lastname "Smith" in two different entries
    under the same form "Alan Smith", the data structure will look like:
    {Smith}->{global}->{Alan Smith} = 2
    We don't care about the value as this means that there are 2 "Alan Smith"s in the global
    context which need disambiguating identically anyway. So, we just count the keys for the
    lastname "Smith" in the global context to see how ambiguous the lastname itself is. This
    would be "1" and so "Alan Smith" would get uniquename=0 because it's unambiguous as just
    "Smith".
    The same goes for "minimal" list context disambiguation for uniquename=5 or 6.
    For example, if we had the lastname "Smith" to disambiguate in two entries with labelname
    "John Smith and Alan Jones", the data structure would look like:
    {Smith}->{Smith+Jones}->{John Smith+Alan Jones} = 2
    Again, counting the keys of the context for the lastname gives us "1" which means we
    have uniquename=0 for "John Smith" in both entries because it's the same list. This also works
    for repeated names in the same list "John Smith and Bert Smith". Disambiguating "Smith" in this:
    {Smith}->{Smith+Smith}->{John Smith+Bert Smith} = 2
    So both "John Smith" and "Bert Smith" in this entry get uniquename=0 (of course, as long as
    there are no other "X Smith and Y Smith" entries where X != "John" or Y != "Bert").

generate_uniquename

   Generate the per-name uniquename values using the information
   harvested by create_uniquename_info()

create_uniquelist_info

    Gather the uniquename information as we look through the names

generate_uniquelist

   Generate the per-namelist uniquelist values using the information
   harvested by create_uniquelist_info()

generate_extra

    Generate information for:
      * extraalpha
      * extrayear
      * extratitle
      * extratitleyear

generate_singletitle

    Generate the singletitle field, if requested. The information for generating
    this is gathered in process_singletitle()

sort_list

    Sort a list using information in entries according to a certain sorting scheme.
    Use a flag to skip info messages on first pass

prepare

    Do the main work.
    Process and sort all entries before writing the output.

prepare_tool

    Do the main work for tool mode

fetch_data

    Fetch citekey and dependents data from section datasources
    Expects to find datasource packages named:
    Biber::Input::<type>::<datatype>
    and one defined subroutine called:
    Biber::Input::<type>::<datatype>::extract_entries
    which takes args:
    1: Biber object
    2: Datasource name
    3: Reference to an array of cite keys to look for
    and returns an array of the cite keys it did not find in the datasource

get_dependents

  Get dependents of the entries for a given list of citekeys. Is called recursively
  until there are no more dependents to look for.

remove_undef_dependent

    Remove undefined dependent keys from an entry using a map of
    dependent keys to entries

_parse_sort

   Convenience sub to parse a .bcf sorting section and return nice
   sorting object

_filedump and _stringdump

    Dump the biber object with Data::Dump for debugging

AUTHORS

Francois Charette, "<firmicus at ankabut.net>" Philip Kime "<philip at kime.org.uk>"

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests on our Github tracker at <https://github.com/plk/biber/issues>.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

This module is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.