[Tex/LaTex] Parsing a .bcf file to biber in the preamble

biberbiblatex

I have a biber.conf file with regular expressions for matching and replacing journal names for their abbreviations (following Paul Stanley's advice).
Right now the file is located in my home dir as .biber.conf and so it is always loaded.
I'd like to be able to control the loading of this file in cases where I don't need to use it.

According to the biber manual this should be easy to achieve by renaming the file to say JourAbs.bcf and parsing it to biber like this: biber <options> JourAbs.bcf.

What I can't figure out is how to code this in the preamble.
I tried: \usepackage[style=ISMEJ, natbib=true, backend=biber JourAbs.bcf]{biblatex}, but that doesn't seem to work. I get: ! Package biblatex Error: Option 'backend=biberjourab invalid.

I know there's also the option of using \DeclareSourcemap but that would require generating a whole new file for some 50+ journals with an entirely different syntax. I'd resort to that only if there are some clear advantages to using this method.

(I'm using: kubuntu 12.04; lyx 2.0.4; biblatex 2.2; biber 1.2)

Best Answer

To summarise the comments to my question. Apparently it is not possible to parse a specific file to biber when calling it from within a LaTeX document. The options are therefore:

  1. Create a .biber.conf file in the home directory, which will be loaded automatically biber whenever it is used (I have no idea what's the Windows/Mac alternative.)
  2. Add a biber.conf file to the same directory of the LaTeX document (or create a link to where the biber.conf file is located).
  3. Supply the commands directly in the preamble, or if these are too long write them into a text document and use \input{} to include them.
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