[Tex/LaTex] unable to make IEEE bibliography work!

biblatexieeetranlinux

In the RefPerSys project, we are submitting a paper to ICCAIT 2021 conference. Deadline is within a few hours.

Our paper draft in on gitlab, repository https://gitlab.com/bstarynk/refpersys under directory doc/iccait-2021/ in the FLTK branch. We are using Linux/Debian/Buster. The README.md contains dependencies, and the ./build.sh shell script is building the PDF.

For a reason I don't understand, I fail to get the bibliography right.

The error message I am getting is:

! Package biblatex Error: '\bibliographystyle' invalid.

See the biblatex package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...

The last PDF I was able to produce is on refpersys.org/iccait2021-refpersys-6f6c8f8d.pdf. As you can see, bibliographical references do not appear. It was produced by git commit 6f6c8f8d

I did read several times the
LaTeX guidelines on https://mirrors.chevalier.io/CTAN/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/IEEEtran_HOWTO.pdf
and BibTeX guidelines on https://ctan.tetaneutral.net/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/bibtex/IEEEtran_bst_HOWTO.pdf

For example, when I run

 ./build.sh >& /tmp/build-iccai2021-61953b55ba0.out

I am obtaining an output file uploaded to refpersys.org/build-iccai2021-61953b55ba0.out

What am I doing wrong ?

I tried many things, and nothing works.

Another way of asking the same question would be: what are the source files (*.tex with *.bib and perhaps *.svg) of a IEEE submission using Linux?

The paradox being that the authors of IEEE LaTeX packages probably are using Linux too….

PS. we gave up the idea of submitting.

Best Answer

biblatex is rarely the right choice if you want to submit to a publisher. I recommend to assume that biblatex is not accepted by publishers unless they explicitly say otherwise.

Let's examine this conference's LaTeX template.

The Paper Submission Guidelines at https://panel.waset.org/conference/2021/05/paris/ICCAIT/guideline link to a LaTeX template at http://waset.org/downloads/latex.zip. That .zip file contains two files: The not very creatively named journal.cls and journal.tex. journal.cls is clearly the document class file and should probably not be modified or even read by authors, but journal.tex contains many comments. Given the state of the comments, it is however not at all clear to me how much of the comments are verbatim copy of the original template (clearly based on Michael Shell's IEEEtran class) and what is from the conference publishers.

Anyway, towards the end of journal.tex we find

% references section

% can use a bibliography generated by BibTeX as a .bbl file
% BibTeX documentation can be easily obtained at:
% http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/biblio/bibtex/contrib/doc/
% The IEEEtran BibTeX style support page is at:
% http://www.michaelshell.org/tex/ieeetran/bibtex/
%\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
% argument is your BibTeX string definitions and bibliography database(s)
%\bibliography{IEEEabrv,../bib/paper}
%
% <OR> manually copy in the resultant .bbl file
% set second argument of \begin to the number of references
% (used to reserve space for the reference number labels box)
\begin{thebibliography}{1}

\bibitem{IEEEhowto:kopka}
H.~Kopka and P.~W. Daly, \emph{A Guide to \LaTeX}, 3rd~ed.\hskip 1em plus
  0.5em minus 0.4em\relax Harlow, England: Addison-Wesley, 1999.

\end{thebibliography}

This suggests to me that the best course of action would be to use BibTeX and \bibliographystyle{IEEEtran} and to copy the .bbl file into your paper before submission. There is no mention of biblatex and the recommended methods are completely incompatible with biblatex, so I recommend you do not use it.

Here's how things might look

\documentclass[journal]{journal}

\begin{document}
\cite{sigfridsson}

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{IEEEabrv,biblatex-examples}
\end{document}

Compile this with LaTeX, BibTeX, LaTeX, LaTeX (use BibTeX and not Biber as you might do with biblatex). More background about BibTeX is at Question mark or bold citation key instead of citation number. When you finish your paper, take your .bbl file, which may look a bit like

% Generated by IEEEtran.bst, version: 1.14 (2015/08/26)
\begin{thebibliography}{1}
\providecommand{\url}[1]{#1}
\csname url@samestyle\endcsname
\providecommand{\newblock}{\relax}
\providecommand{\bibinfo}[2]{#2}
\providecommand{\BIBentrySTDinterwordspacing}{\spaceskip=0pt\relax}
\providecommand{\BIBentryALTinterwordstretchfactor}{4}
\providecommand{\BIBentryALTinterwordspacing}{\spaceskip=\fontdimen2\font plus
\BIBentryALTinterwordstretchfactor\fontdimen3\font minus
  \fontdimen4\font\relax}
\providecommand{\BIBforeignlanguage}[2]{{%
\expandafter\ifx\csname l@#1\endcsname\relax
\typeout{** WARNING: IEEEtran.bst: No hyphenation pattern has been}%
\typeout{** loaded for the language `#1'. Using the pattern for}%
\typeout{** the default language instead.}%
\else
\language=\csname l@#1\endcsname
\fi
#2}}
\providecommand{\BIBdecl}{\relax}
\BIBdecl

\bibitem{sigfridsson}
E.~Sigfridsson and U.~Ryde, ``Comparison of methods for deriving atomic charges
  from the electrostatic potential and moments,'' \emph{Journal of
  Computational Chemistry}, vol.~19, no.~4, pp. 377--395, 1998.

\end{thebibliography}

and copy it into your .tex file replacing the two lines

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{IEEEabrv,biblatex-examples}

resulting in

\documentclass[journal]{journal}

\begin{document}
\cite{sigfridsson}

% Generated by IEEEtran.bst, version: 1.14 (2015/08/26)
\begin{thebibliography}{1}
\providecommand{\url}[1]{#1}
\csname url@samestyle\endcsname
\providecommand{\newblock}{\relax}
\providecommand{\bibinfo}[2]{#2}
\providecommand{\BIBentrySTDinterwordspacing}{\spaceskip=0pt\relax}
\providecommand{\BIBentryALTinterwordstretchfactor}{4}
\providecommand{\BIBentryALTinterwordspacing}{\spaceskip=\fontdimen2\font plus
\BIBentryALTinterwordstretchfactor\fontdimen3\font minus
  \fontdimen4\font\relax}
\providecommand{\BIBforeignlanguage}[2]{{%
\expandafter\ifx\csname l@#1\endcsname\relax
\typeout{** WARNING: IEEEtran.bst: No hyphenation pattern has been}%
\typeout{** loaded for the language `#1'. Using the pattern for}%
\typeout{** the default language instead.}%
\else
\language=\csname l@#1\endcsname
\fi
#2}}
\providecommand{\BIBdecl}{\relax}
\BIBdecl

\bibitem{sigfridsson}
E.~Sigfridsson and U.~Ryde, ``Comparison of methods for deriving atomic charges
  from the electrostatic potential and moments,'' \emph{Journal of
  Computational Chemistry}, vol.~19, no.~4, pp. 377--395, 1998.

\end{thebibliography}
\end{document}
Related Question