[Tex/LaTex] Merge two BibTeX files

bibliographiesbibtex

I was constructing a BibTeX file for my Thesis. At the middle of that I had copied that bib file to another document I had to produce, I had to add some new citations to the copy of the original.

Now I have 2 bib files that have a lot in common but differ in some citations. Is there a way to merge them? So that I have one single file with all the citations from both files but no duplicates?

Best Answer

bibtool -s bibliography1.bib bibliography2.bib will merge two bib files, keeping duplicate entries. bibtool -s -d bibliography1.bib bibliography2.bib will merge two bib files, commenting out one of the duplicated entries (not sure which one). For more info, see documentation.

Bibtool is on CTAN. Not to be confused with bibtools which is also on CTAN and probably also has the capacity to do this sort of thing...

Bibtool can also be found in Ubuntu repositories. (I wasn't able to compile the one from CTAN)

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[Tex/LaTex] Strategy for managing multiple Bibtex files

I just keep everything in one big BibTeX database and use the search function in JabRef.

If I really need to give away a subset of the references to a co-worker (and don't want to send the whole file), I generate a new, smaller .bib-File using the "New subdatabase based on AUX file" from the Tools menu in JabRef.

But ultimately, you'll just adopt a system that works best for you. Mendeley has been suggested, I've also heard good things about CiteUlike.

[Tex/LaTex] Merge bibtex citations

Is the goal just to create a .bib file with all the unique references, or to create a single printed bibliography to tack onto the back of all these different documents? If the former (I'm making this assumption because you say that the source documents have "various incompatible classes", etc), then Bibtool and its "extraction" option is your friend. I haven't tested this, but assuming bibtool is installed, if you run latex/bibtex on each separate .tex file, so that the .aux files are generated, then I believe something like

bibtool -x file1.aux file2.aux file3.aux -o consolidated.bib

will move you toward what you want. See p10 and pp27-28 of the bibtool manual. Even if the goal is a single printed bibliography, however, it will be straightforward to produce one once you've created the consolidated .bib file.

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[Tex/LaTex] Strategy for managing multiple Bibtex files

[Tex/LaTex] Merge bibtex citations

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