db2ris - Online in the Cloud

PROGRAM:

NAME

db2ris - converts DocBook bibliographic data to the RIS format

SYNOPSIS

db2ris [-a] [-e log-destination] [-h] [-L log-file] [-o file] [-O file] [-r reftype] file

DESCRIPTION

db2ris converts DocBook bibliographic data into RIS files. The design and purpose of the
DocBook bibliography information is too different from the RIS format to warrant a simple
and straightforward conversion, let alone a bi-directional one. The DocBook bibliography
definition allows for a lot of freedom how to encode your information. To accommodate as
wide a range of uses and abuses of the bibliographic elements as possible, this import
filter is implemented as a DSSSL stylesheet rather than as a C application. This allows
you to quickly change or extend the stylesheet to adapt it to your needs. db2ris is a
wrapper script which invokes OpenJade to do the actual transformation.

OPTIONS

-a
Use full first- and othernames if they are present in the DocBook source. By default,
all first- and othernames will be abbreviated.

-e log-destination
log-destination can have the values 0, 1, or 2, or the equivalent strings stderr,
syslog, or file, respectively. This value specifies where the log information goes to.
0 (zero) means the messages are sent to stderr. They are immediately available on the
screen but they may interfere with command output. 1 will send the output to the
syslog facility. Keep in mind that syslog must be configured to accept log messages
from user programs, see the syslog(8) man page for further information. Unix-like
systems usually save these messages in /var/log/user.log. 2 will send the messages to
a custom log file which can be specified with the -L option.

-h
Displays help and usage screen, then exits.

-L log-file
Specify the full path to a log file that will receive the log messages. Typically this
would be /var/log/refdba.

-o file
Send output to file instead of to stdout. If file exists, its contents will be
overwritten.

-O file
Send output to file instead of to stdout. If file exists, the output will be appended.

-r reftype
Set the default RIS reference type. This type will be used if db2ris cannot infer the
reference type from the BiblioEntry element.

file
The names of one or more DocBook files.

CONFIGURATION

db2ris evaluates the file db2risrc to initialize itself.

Table 1. db2risrc
┌───────────────┬─────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┐
│Variable │ Default │ Comment │
├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│logfile │ /var/log/db2ris.log │ The full path of a │
│ │ │ custom log file. This is │
│ │ │ used only if logdest is │
│ │ │ set appropriately. │
├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│logdest │ 0 │ The destination of the │
│ │ │ log information. 0 = │
│ │ │ print to stderr; 2 = use │
│ │ │ a custom logfile. The │
│ │ │ latter needs a proper │
│ │ │ setting of logfile. │
├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│authorlong │ f │ Set this to t if full │
│ │ │ first- and othernames │
│ │ │ should be used if │
│ │ │ possible. │
├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│defaultreftype │ GEN │ The default RIS │
│ │ │ reference type will be │
│ │ │ used if a BiblioEntry │
│ │ │ element does not specify │
│ │ │ the type. │
└───────────────┴─────────────────────┴──────────────────────────┘

DATA PROCESSING

We have to make a bunch of assumptions to arrive at a suitable output:

· db2ris will handle only “raw” (as opposed to “cooked”) bibliographic data. This
basically means that you must encode all bibliographic data in BiblioEntry elements,
not in BiblioMixed elements.

· db2ris discards all publication date information from the PubDate except the first 4
characters of #PCDATA so these should better be a 4-digit year.

· By default, the publication type is neither explicitly encoded in a BiblioEntry
element nor can it be easily inferred. Therefore db2ris assumes that the BiblioEntry
carry a role attribute with the RIS publication type as the value. If the attribute is
missing, a default type is used instead. This means that you should add these
attributes before the conversion in order to get useful RIS datasets (or fix the TY
entries in the RIS file afterwards).

· DocBook does not have a special element to encode the name of a journal or magazine
that published an article. Instead the same Title element is used as for the article
title, a book title, or a series title. To distinguish between a journal or magazine
name and “real” titles, the Title element encoding the journal name is assumed to be
nested in a BiblioSet whose relation attribute is set to “journal”, “pub”, “abbrev”,
or “full” (this more or less arbitrary list can of course be extended or changed, see
below). The values “abbrev” and “full” furthermore decide whether the RIS tag “JO” or
“JF” will be used.

MODIFYING DB2RIS

As previously stated, db2ris is implemented as a DSSSL stylesheet that can be easily and
quickly adapted to your needs. It may be prudent to create copies of the script and modify
these in order to adapt them for particular “abuses” of the DocBook bibliographic elements
in various documents or data sources. This section briefly lists the functions which you
would most likely want to change.

reftype-heuristic
This function attempts to infer the correct RIS publication type.

titletype-heuristic
This function gives a hint whether a Title element is used as a journal/magazine name
or as an article title or book title.

process-date
This function creates a valid string for the RIS PY tag from the PubDate element.

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