Editing .bst file to modify printing of publisher and address information

Question

I'm lost in some bst hell. Basically I'm trying to get Springer's spbasic.bst file to work. I'm almost there, but there are few annoying issues. First, instead of getting Address: Publisher, I get Publisher, Address. which is incorrect.

I saw the functions format.publisher.address, and the book section:

FUNCTION {book}
{ output.bibitem
  author empty$
    { format.editors "author and editor" output.check
      editor format.key output
      add.blank
    }
    { format.authors output.nonnull
      crossref missing$
        { "author and editor" editor either.or.check }
        'skip$
      if$
    }
  if$
  format.date "year" output.check  
  new.sentence
  format.btitle "title" output.check
  crossref missing$
    { format.bvolume output
      format.edition output
  new.sentence
      format.number.series output
      format.publisher.address output
    }
    {
  new.sentence
      format.book.crossref output.nonnull
    }
  if$
  format.doi output
  format.url output
  format.note output
  format.eprint output
  fin.entry
}

How do I fix it? The bst syntax must be one of the least comprehensible languages I've ever seen.

Answer 1

publisher and address are formatted and printed by the function format.publisher.address

FUNCTION {format.publisher.address}
{ publisher "publisher" bibinfo.warn format.org.or.pub
}

As you can see this function calls another function function.org.or.pub

FUNCTION {format.org.or.pub}
    { 't :=
      ""
      address empty$ t empty$ and
        'skip$
        {
          t empty$
            { address "address" bibinfo.check *
            }
            { t *
              address empty$
                'skip$
                { ", " * address "address" bibinfo.check * }
              if$
            }
          if$
        }
      if$
    }

As you can see, there is one instruction ", " (at line 1044 of the file spbasic.bst). This is what you have to modify, specifically, youcan replace it with ": ".