[Tex/LaTex] In biblatex, treat periods in journal as abbreviation dots

biblatexpunctuation

I would like to consistently have a comma between the journal and volume number for article references using biblatex with biber as the backend. Unfortunately, the punctuation between the journal and volume is not consistent. Journals whose last word is abbreviated have no comma between the journal and the volume, and the word "Vol." is capitalized. Journals whose last word is not abbreviated have a comma and the word "vol." is not capitalized. I can fix the capitalization by un-commenting the commented lines in the below MWE, but the comma problem is quite perplexing. Apologies if this fix is in an answer somewhere, but I cannot find it (or at least, I don't know what to search for!).

Current output:
[1] First Author. “Blah Blah 2”. In: Am. J. Phys. Vol. 72, no. 3 (Mar. 2004),
pp. 367–375.
[2] Second Author. “Blah blah”. In: Energy Fuel, vol. 27, no. 12 (Dec. 2013),
pp. 7778–7789.

Expected output:
[1] First Author. “Blah Blah 2”. In: Am. J. Phys., vol. 72, no. 3 (Mar. 2004),
pp. 367–375.
[2] Second Author. “Blah blah”. In: Energy Fuel, vol. 27, no. 12 (Dec. 2013),
pp. 7778–7789.

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\usepackage[
    backend=biber,
    citestyle=numeric-comp,
]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname}
% \DefineBibliographyStrings{english}{%
    % volume = {\lowercase{v}ol\adddot}, % avoid capitalization after dots.
% }
\DeclareFieldFormat[article]{volume}{\bibstring{volume}\addspace #1}
\DeclareFieldFormat[article]{number}{\bibstring{number}\addspace #1}
\renewbibmacro*{volume+number+eid}{%
  \printfield{volume}%
  \setunit{\addcomma\space}%<---- was \setunit*{\adddot}%
  \printfield{number}%
  \setunit{\addcomma\space}%
  \printfield{eid}}
\renewbibmacro*{journal+issuetitle}{%
  \usebibmacro{journal}%
  \setunit*{\addcomma\addspace}%<---- was \setunit*{\addspace}%
  \iffieldundef{series}
    {}
    {\newunit
     \printfield{series}%
     \setunit{\addspace}}%
  \usebibmacro{volume+number+eid}%
  \setunit{\addspace}%
  \usebibmacro{issue+date}%
  \setunit{\addcolon\space}%
  \usebibmacro{issue}%
  \newunit}

\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@article{York2004,
author = {Author, First},
journal = {Am. J. Phys.},
month = mar,
number = {3},
pages = {367--375},
title = {{Blah Blah 2}},
volume = {72},
year = {2004}
}
@article{Baumgardner2013a,
author = {Author, Second},
journal = {Energy Fuel},
month = dec,
number = {12},
pages = {7778--7789},
title = {{Blah blah}},
volume = {27},
year = {2013}
}
\end{filecontents*}

\begin{document}
\nocite{*}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Best Answer

The problem is that biblatex treats the abbreviation dot in journal = {Am. J. Phys.} as a literal period (the end of a sentence).

We can stop biblatex from doing that by using \isdot

\DeclareFieldFormat{journaltitle}{\mkbibemph{#1\isdot}}

As per the biblatex documentation §4.7.3 Adding Punctuation, p. 191:

\isdot Turns a previously inserted literal period into an abbreviation dot. In contrast to \adddot, nothing is inserted if this command is not preceded by a period.

This solution will treat all trailing periods in the journal field as abbreviation dots.

If you only want that for particular cases, you could consider adding \isdot to the journal field manually (journal = {Am. J. Phys.\isdot} or write journal = {Am\adddotspace J\adddotspace Phys\adddot} using the host of commands biblatex provides for these matters). This is is not to be recommended as it will make the .bib file less portable though.

MWE

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\usepackage[
    backend=biber,
    citestyle=numeric-comp,
]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\DeclareFieldFormat{journaltitle}{\mkbibemph{#1}\isdot}
\DeclareFieldFormat[article]{volume}{\bibstring{volume}\addspace #1}
\DeclareFieldFormat[article]{number}{\bibstring{number}\addspace #1}
\renewbibmacro*{volume+number+eid}{%
  \printfield{volume}%
  \setunit{\addcomma\space}%<---- was \setunit*{\adddot}%
  \printfield{number}%
  \setunit{\addcomma\space}%
  \printfield{eid}}
\renewbibmacro*{journal+issuetitle}{%
  \usebibmacro{journal}%
  \setunit*{\addcomma\addspace}%<---- was \setunit*{\addspace}%
  \iffieldundef{series}
    {}
    {\newunit
     \printfield{series}%
     \setunit{\addspace}}%
  \usebibmacro{volume+number+eid}%
  \setunit{\addspace}%
  \usebibmacro{issue+date}%
  \setunit{\addcolon\space}%
  \usebibmacro{issue}%
  \newunit}

\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@article{York2004,
author = {Author, First},
journal = {Am. J. Phys.},
month = mar,
number = {3},
pages = {367--375},
title = {{Blah Blah 2}},
volume = {72},
year = {2004}
}
@article{Baumgardner2013a,
author = {Author, Second},
journal = {Energy Fuel},
month = dec,
number = {12},
pages = {7778--7789},
title = {{Blah blah}},
volume = {27},
year = {2013}
}
\end{filecontents*}

\begin{document}
\nocite{*}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

enter image description here

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Biblatex: How to insert dots into abbreviated journal names in bibliography

I prepared a solution using the new biber feature. Please update your biber to 0.9.6 first.

I prepared this minimal input file:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[backend=biber, style=numeric-comp]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{manuell.bib}

\begin{document}
\fullcite{Reynolds:1950p3730}
\end{document}

with this manuell.bib-file

@article{Reynolds:1950p3730,
author = {C. Reynolds and B. Serin and W. Wright and L. Nesbitt}, 
journal = {Philos Trans R Soc},
title = {Superconductivity of isotopes of mercury},
pages = {487},
volume = {78},
year = {1950}
}

LaTeX, biber, LaTeX leads to:

nobiberconf which is the unchanged output. Now, we use the biber regular expression matching to change the journal name to a new version with periods. The file named biber.conf has the following content:

<map>
  <bibtex>
  BMAP_OVERWRITE 1
    <globalfield journal>
      BMAP_MATCH Philos\sTrans\sR\sSoc
      BMAP_REPLACE "Philos. Trans. R. Soc."
       </globalfield>
       </bibtex>
</map>

It is explained in the biber manual section 3.1.1 The map option. Please note the regular expression \s to match a white space. After putting the biber.conf file in the actual directory, we get (LaTeX, biber, LaTeX):

withbiberconf which is the desired change. It is most likely not possible to do this fully automatic for all journals with one regular expression, because (cp. comment @Michael Palmer) CNS Drugs rev would become CNS Drugs. rev. if a period is simply added after every word.

Also note, the input file format will change in 0.9.7 and this solution has to be updated once the new version is out.

Quote @PLK:

The config file format will change for biber 0.9.7 as it was too restrictive.

taken from his answer to this question.

Here is the config file format for biber 0.9.8 and above:

<config>
  <sourcemap>
    <maps datatype="bibtex" map_overwrite="1">
      <map>
        <map_step
          map_field_source="journal"
          map_match="Philos\sTrans\sR\sSoc"
          map_replace="Philos. Trans. R. Soc." />
      </map>
    </maps>
  </sourcemap>
</config>

[Tex/LaTex] Show journal abbreviation in reference list with biblatex/biber

If you look at PLK's comment on the question you referred to, you will see that he referred to an intended change of syntax. In fact, Biber has moved on substantially from where it was when that question was answered.

There are two ways to do this now. One (which will work, I think, with versions of Biber after (I think) 0.9.7, including current versions, is to have a biber.conf file with an entry like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <config>
  <sourcemap>
   <maps datatype="bibtex">
     <map map_overwrite="1">
      <map_step map_field_source="journal"
       map_match = "Applied\sand\sEnvironmental\sMicrobiology"
       map_replace = "Appl Environ Microbiol"/>
     </map>
     <map map_overwrite="1">
      <map_step map_field_source="journaltitle"
       map_match = "Applied\sand\sEnvironmental\sMicrobiology"
       map_replace = "Appl Environ Microbiol"/>
     </map>
   </maps>
  </sourcemap>
 </config>

(Note: I have corrected your regular expression, which was matching "Applies ..." and made this work for both journal and journaltitle fields.)

The alternative approach, which is possible with Biblatex 2.0+ and Biber 1.0+ (which I highly recommend you upgrade to) allows you to do this in the document code itself, or in a biblatex configuration or style file), using the \DeclareSourcemap facility.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{art1,
  author = {Someone},
  title  = {Something},
  journal = {Applied and Environmental Microbiology},
  date = {1994},
  pages = {100},
}
@article{art2,
  author = {Someone},
  title  = {Something},
  journaltitle = {Applied and Environmental Microbiology},
  date = {1994},
  pages = {100},
}
\end{filecontents}
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}
\DeclareSourcemap{
  \maps[datatype=bibtex,overwrite=true]{
   \map{
     \step[fieldsource=journal,
           match=\regexp{Applied\sand\sEnvironmental\sMicrobiology},
           replace={Appl Environ Microbiol}]
     \step[fieldsource=journaltitle,
           match=\regexp{Applied\sand\sEnvironmental\sMicrobiology},
           replace={Appl Environ Microbiol}]
   }
  }
}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\begin{document}
\nocite{*}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

enter image description here

In each case, albeit by different methods (one by writing a configuration file directly, one by writing it indirectly using the \DeclareSourcemap essentially says: look at the journal or journaltitle fields, and if they match the regular expression "Applied[space]and[space]Environmental[space]Microbiology" replace them with "Appl Environ Microbiol".

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Biblatex: How to insert dots into abbreviated journal names in bibliography

[Tex/LaTex] Show journal abbreviation in reference list with biblatex/biber

Related Question