dash instead of repeated author name

Question

I am using the natbib package with a bibliography style very similar to humannat. I would like to get a long dash instead of the full author name in multiple references where the author is the same. I would be grateful for any suggestions.

Answer 1

The bibliography style file humannat.bst has been around more or less unchanged for at least twenty years. As such, my first inclination is to recommend that you not bother modifying the file. Instead, select a more modern bibliography style file, preferably one that already knows about such "new-fangled" [!] fields such as url and doi. The header information in the file humannat.bst states that it is based on the (by now equally obsolete) apalike bibliography style. Thus, you may want to start your search for a more recent bibliography style with apa.bst and apa6.bst. Just a thought.

If you are, however, committed to using the humannat bibliography style, you could proceed as follows to instruct BibTeX to replace instances of repeated authors (and editors) with long dashes:

• Make a copy of humannat.bst and call it, say, myhumannat.bst. Do not edit/overwrite existing files of this nature.

• Open the file myhumannat.bst in your favorite text editor and search for the function named article. (It starts on line 586 in my local copy of this file.)

• Just ahead of this function, insert the following lines of code:

  STRINGS {oldname}
  
  FUNCTION {name.or.dash}
  { 's :=
      oldname empty$
       { s 'oldname := s }
       { s oldname =
           { "---{}---{}---" }
           { s 'oldname := s }
         if$
       }
      if$
  }
  

  You didn't specify in your question just how long the "dash" should be. I've chosen a length of "three em-dashes" in the function above. If you'd rather have a dash of only one or two em-dashes in length, you are free to modify the function in the obvious manner.

• Next, there should be 11 instances of the following two lines of code in humannat.bst (in the functions article, booklet, incollection, inproceedings, manual, mastersthesis, misc, phdthesis, proceedings, techreport, and unpublished, respectively):

  author format.key output    % special for
  output.year.check       % apalike
  

  In all of these instances, insert the line

  name.or.dash
  

  between these two lines of code.

• The functions that need further, special attention are those for entries of type @book and @inbook, because they have to deal with both repeated author(s) and repeated editor(s). To modify the book function, search for the following lines of code:

  FUNCTION {book}
  { output.bibitem
    author empty$
      { format.editors "author and editor" output.check
        editor format.key output
      }
      { format.authors output.nonnull
        crossref missing$
      { "author and editor" editor either.or.check }
      'skip$
        if$
      }
  

  and replace the entire block with

  FUNCTION {book}
  { output.bibitem
    author empty$
      { format.editors "author and editor" output.check
        editor format.key output
        name.or.dash
      }
      { format.authors output.nonnull
        name.or.dash
        crossref missing$
      { "author and editor" editor either.or.check }
      'skip$
        if$
      }
  

  Note the two new lines that invoke the name.or.dash function.

• Give the same search-and-replace treatment to the first few lines of the inbook function. Of course, if you're sure you won't ever have entries of type @inbook in your bib files, you may skip this step.

• Save the file myhumannat.bst and update the TeX filename database in a way that's appropriate for your TeX distribution, so that BibTeX can find it when LaTeX encounters the instruction

  \bibliographystyle{myhumannat}
  

Happy (Bib)TeXing!