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     ple,  unpublished  articles and technical reports have stan­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.