[Tex/LaTex] Count in document used source references

bibtexstatistics

I currently gathering some statistical information about my thesis for reporting purposes. One metric I want to determine is how many sources I have referenced.
I have a BibTeX file with more than 150 sources, but I only use a subset in my thesis. Is there a way to count the used sources (the sources in the source-index, not the \cite commands). I don't use a number based short reference and I don't want to change my citation style.

Is there a count-macro or something else to count referenced sources in LaTeX?

Best Answer

If you have an uptodate TeX Live 2011, the checkcites script from the command line does what you want. If your main file is called myfile.tex, compile it as usual and run bibtex. Then

checkcites myfile.aux

will tell you how many entries you have explicitly called and how many have not been referenced (\nocite{*} will not count them).

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Bibtex Automatic replacement of 4+ authors with et al.

As the comments have mentioned, I would recommend against maintaining a bibliography with the abbreviations done by hand. This is exactly the sort of automatic thing that bibtex should be doing for you. That said, I don't know how to control this sort of thing with bibtex. I seem to remember that natbib did automatically truncate author lists, but I can't remember how much control it gave you. (indeed, this could well have been one of the things that made me move to biblatex...)

The biblatex solution would simply be to set maxnames=4 as a package option. Incidentally, biblatex is no longer in beta: v1.0 was uploaded to CTAN yesterday.

[Tex/LaTex] alternative bibliography with specific entries, without assuming a global bibliography

Ok, I sort of worked a solution, and it should also clarify what I mean exactly.

% \butcheredbibliography - inserts an on-the-spot 'bibliography' -
% no title, no new section/chapter etc. - with no cite keys, smaller
% font and enclosed in a frame. Usable on the acknowledgement page
% of your thesis. This \nocite{}'s everything in the bib file, so
% have one with just those entries you need, or otherwise do your
% own nocites.
%
% arguments:
%  #1  the multibib bibliography name (appended to certain commands)
%  #2  the bibliography filename/s
%
\newsavebox{\butcheredbib@box}
\newcommand{\butcheredbibliography}[2]{
  \makeatletter
  \ifdefined\butcheredbib@acks
    % already used the #1 bibliography's source file/s, so
    % no need to re-indicate all items are necessary
  \else
    \@nameuse{nocite#1}{*} % e.g. \nociteacks{*}
  \fi
  \begingroup
  \let\etalchar\@undefined
  \def\thebibliography##1{%
    \begin{center}%
    \begin{spacing}{1}%
    \begin{lrbox}{\butcheredbib@box}%
    \footnotesize
    \begin{minipage}{0.9\textwidth}%
    \begin{list}{}{%
      \setlength{\leftmargin}{0in}%
      \setlength{\rightmargin}{0in}%
      %\setlength{\leftmargin}{0.1\textwidth}%
      %\setlength{\rightmargin}{0.1\textwidth}%
      }%
  }%
  \def\endthebibliography{%
    \end{list}%
    \end{minipage}%
    \end{lrbox}%
    \fbox{\usebox{\butcheredbib@box}}
    \end{spacing}%
    \end{center}%
  }%
  % the following works for 'alpha' bibliographystyle, and probably
  % most other styles in which a non-numeric key is generated - it uses
  % the generated cite key instead of the bullet
  \def\bibitem[##1]##2##3\par{\item[]##3}%
  % One can also filter the results, using an extra argument #3
  %\def\bibitem[##1]##2##3\par{\IfSubStr{,#3,}{,##2,}{\item[]##3}{}}%
  \ifdefined\butcheredbib@acks
    % already used the #1 bibliography's source file/s; we're
    % assuming the caller has not indicated other sources...
    \@input{#1.bbl}%
  \else
    \@nameuse{bibliography#1}{#2}
  \fi
  \global\expandafter\def\csname butcheredbib@#1\endcsname{}
  \endgroup%
  \makeatother
}

I use this thing twice in my Ph.D. thesis, on the Hebrew and English acknowledgements page - there's a silly requirement to this effect by our grad school. See the English page and the Hebrew page.

Anyway, the acks.bib file contains exactly those items I need to use. I could have done things differently (see the commented-out filtering), but it wasn't necessary eventually.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Bibtex Automatic replacement of 4+ authors with et al.

[Tex/LaTex] alternative bibliography with specific entries, without assuming a global bibliography

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