Sorting the bibliography by entry type

Question

I am using BibTeX. For overall configuration I use a .cls file. I am looking for a way to sort the bibliography in this order: Books, articles, and miscellaneous. Currently all types of materials get sorted according to author name. As I am not using author parameter for misc, all misc categories appear first, which I don't want to happen.

Answer 1

Here's how to do it using biblatex. (The defernumbers package option ensures that the numeric labels are assigned according to the order of entries in the bibliographies.)

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[defernumbers=true]{biblatex}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@misc{A01,
  author = {Author, A.},
  year = {2001},
  title = {Alpha},
}
@book{B02,
  author = {Buthor, B.},
  year = {2002},
  title = {Bravo},
  location = {Location},
  publisher = {Publisher},
}
@article{C03,
  author = {Cuthor, C.},
  year = {2003},
  title = {Charlie},
  journaltitle = {Journal title},
  volume = {1},
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\nocite{*}

\begin{document}

\printbibliography[type=book,title={Books}]

\printbibliography[type=article,title={Articles}]

\printbibliography[nottype=book,nottype=article,title={Miscellaneous}]

\end{document}

(The filecontents environment is only used to include some external files directly into the example, so that it compiles. It is not necessary for the solution.)

Answer 2

You need to change the sort keys in the bst file in order to achieve this. Suppose you use bibliography style alpha. Then copy alpha.bst (you can locate that on your system by kpsewhich alpha.bst) into your tex directory and rename it to something like myalpha.bst. Inside that file locate the function presort and at the very end of that function (right before the }) insert the following code:

type$ "book" = 
  {
    "01-" sort.key$ *
    'sort.key$ := 
  } 
  {
    type$ "article" = 
      {
        "02-" sort.key$ *
        'sort.key$ := 
      }
      {
        "99-" sort.key$ *
        'sort.key$ := 
      }
    if$
  }
if$

This pretty strange piece of code prefixes the sort keys for books with 01-, for articles with 02- and for all the rest with 99-.

Note: If you wonder what all of that means: bibtex uses a stack based language inside the bst files, so you first push the arguments and then push the operator or function which pops its arguments from the top of the stacks, computes its result and then pushes the result on the stack. E.g. type$ "book" = pushes the contents of the type field on the stack, then the string "book" and at last the comparison operator "=". If both are equal "=" will push true on the stack, or false otherwise. Then with the {} two code blocks are pushed on the stack and then $if pops the boolean value and the two code blocks and executes one of them, depending on the boolean value. So, you can decipher it after some time, but I think it'll never get really readable. (Actually, it's easier to write than to read IMO).