User Commands ams2bib(1) NAME ams2bib - convert AmSTeX bibliography into BibTeX SYNOPSIS ams2bib [-o file.bib] file[.tex] DESCRIPTION ams2bib takes a file consisting of AmSTeX bibliography entries and produces a file consisting of the same biblio­ graphic entries, but in BibTeX format. OPTIONS -o file[.bib] Specify the name of the BibTeX file to produce. The default is to use name.bib, where name is file, stripped of any filename extension. -h Display a brief help message. USAGE The only non-option command-line parameter is the name of an input file. If no filename extension is given, the default extension tex is assumed. This file must consist of AmSTeX bibliography entries. The output file consists of BibTeX bibliographic entries. The kind of BibTeX entry produced depends on the correspond­ ing AmSTeX entry. If the AmSTeX entry contains \book, then a Book BibTeX entry is produced. Otherwise, if the AmSTeX entry contains \inbook, then a InCollection BibTeX entry is produced. Otherwise, if the AmSTeX entry contains \paper, then an Article BibTeX entry is produced. If none of these three AmSTeX control sequence is contained, then the AmSTeX entry is considered to be in error. Note that a key is automatically generated for each BibTeX entry. This key consists of all the authors' names cate­ nated together, followed by the date found in the \year field. If this would result in duplicate keys, then an alphabetic letter ("b", "c", etc.) is appended to the key. Users who want to use other kinds of automatically-generated keys should consider using Gerd Neugebauer's bibtool, which is available via CTAN (http://www.ctan.org). SEE ALSO amstex(1), bibtool(1), bibtex(1), latex(1), tex(1). LIMITATIONS One of the main differences between AmSTeX and BibTeX is that BibTeX provides a greater variety bibliographic entries than does AmSTeX. This means that an AmSTeX bibliography will often use ad hoc methods in cases where a BibTeX bibli­ ography can be more straightforward. In such situations, the user will have to make corrections by hand. For exam­ ple, unpublished articles and technical reports have stan­ dard BibTeX bibliographic entries, but are usually done in AmSTeX by adding information to the \paperinfo field; hence, unpublished articles and technical reports will need to be edited by hand. Error checking is minimal. ams2bib only does the usual com­ mand-line parameter checking. In particular, the syntax of the AmSTeX file is not checked. As mentioned above, duplicate keys would normally result if the authors and year match for more than one entry. This is resolved by appending an alphabetic letter to the key. At most nine such additional letters ("b" through "j") are added. AUTHOR Copyright (c) Arthur G. Werschulz 2000. ams2bib may be freely redistributed under the Gnu Public License. Send mail to agw@cs.columbia.edu if you have any questions or suggestions.