LOOKBIB(1)                           BSD                            LOOKBIB(1)



NAME
     indxbib, lookbib - build inverted index for a bibliography, find
     references in a bibliography

SYNOPSIS
     indxbib database ...
     lookbib [ -n ] database

DESCRIPTION
     indxbib makes an inverted index from the named databases (or files) for
     use by lookbib and refer(1).  These files contain bibliographic
     references (or other kinds of information) separated by blank lines.

     A bibliographic reference is a set of lines constituting fields of
     bibliographic information.  Each field starts on a line beginning with a
     percent sign (%) followed by a keyletter, then a blank, and finally the
     contents of the field, which may continue until the next line starting
     with a percent sign.

     indxbib is a shell script that calls /usr/lib/refer/mkey and
     /usr/lib/refer/inv.  The first program, mkey, truncates words to six
     characters, and maps uppercase to lowercase.  It also discards words
     shorter than three characters, words among the 100 most common English
     words, and numbers (dates) less than 1900 or greater than 2000.  You can
     change these parameters; see refer(1) for more information. The second
     program, inv, creates an entry file (.ia), a posting file (.ib), and a
     tag file (.ic) in the working directory.

     lookbib uses an inverted index made by indxbib to find sets of
     bibliographic references.  It reads keywords typed after the greater-than
     sign (>) prompt on the terminal, and retrieves records containing all
     these keywords.  If no matches occur, lookbib simply issues another
     prompt.

     lookbib asks if you need instructions, and prints some brief information
     if you reply with a word starting with the letter "y".

     You can search multiple databases, as long as they have a common index
     made by indxbib.  In that case, only the first argument given to indxbib
     is specified to lookbib.

     If lookbib does not find the index files (the .i[abc] files), it looks
     for a reference file with the same name as the argument (minus the
     suffixes).  It creates a file with the suffix .ig, suitable for use with
     fgrep.  It then uses this file to find references.  This method is
     simpler, but the .ig file is slower to use than the .i[abc] files, and
     does not allow the use of multiple reference files.

OPTIONS
     -n   Do not prompt for instructions.

FILES
     database.ia, database.ib, database.ic, where database is the first
     argument, or if this is not present, database.ig and database.

BUGS
     All dates should probably be indexed, because many disciplines refer to
     literature written in the 1800s or earlier.

SEE ALSO
     refer(1), addbib(1), sortbib(1), roffbib(1)