amsalpha-like bibtex style with manual labels

Question

I want to do amsalpha style citation with BibTeX, except that I want to have manual control over the key/labels (e.g., [ABC09]). Is there an option for this?

Answer 1

One of the optional fields of a BibTeX entry is key which is used for put in alphabetical order, cross-references and as label when the author or editor information is not available. Thus one can use the key field for the value of records for which one wants to manually control the label.

To this end one has to modify the amsalpha.bst, in particular the FUNCTION {output.bibitem}. (Please create a copy of amsalpha.bst and change the name to it, let us say myamsalpha.bst) This function can be modified as follows

FUNCTION {output.bibitem}
{ newline$
  "\bibitem[" write$
  key empty$
    {label write$}
    {key write$}
  if$
  "]{" write$
  cite$ write$
  "}" write$
  newline$
  ""
  before.all 'output.state :=
}

Then, you can use it as follows:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{first,
  author = "Last, First",
  title = "First Title",
  journal = "Journal Name",
  year = 2012
}
@Article{second,
  key = {ABC12},
  author = "Last, First",
  title = "Second Title",
  journal = "Journal Name",
  year = 2011
}
@Article{third,
  author = "More, First",
  title = "Third Title",
  journal = "Journal Name",
  year = 2011
}
\end{filecontents}
\begin{document}
Testing citations
\cite{first} 
\cite{second}
\cite{third}

\bibliographystyle{amsalpha}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}