Changes in .cbx-file won't affect footcites

Question

I use biblatex and want the authors in the footcite-environment to be separated with a slash. Therefore I edited my style-file. As I understand it the bbx is used for the bibliography and the cbx for the text-citations. In my case the cbx-file would be the choice. The responsible line in my file looks like the following

\renewcommand*{\multinamedelim}{\addslash}

Problem: It won't change anything. My footcites seem to go along with the bbx-file. If I add the line there, it takes effect in the footcites and in my bibliography... How can I change the footcites style?

Answer 1

As a rule-of-thumb you should never modify any standard files that come with a package. So if you want to modify a bibliography style (.bbx/.cbx/.lbx, you name it) it is best to work on a copy of the original file, or even better come up with a file that just amends the original one (a short wrapper that loads the original file internally and throws in some modifications). Some modifications, however, are very easily dealt with in the preamble of your document (you may still choose to include them in a file to be loaded via \inlcude or in a biblatex .bbx/.cbx file, if you'd like to do so).

Enough of that, though: to the problem at hand!

In order to get different results in citations and the bibliography, we need to hook into either the citations and change the command there, or do the same thing for the bibliography.

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So you could change the delimiter in every citation via

\AtEveryCite{%
  \renewcommand*{\multinamedelim}{\addslash}
  \renewcommand*{\finalnamedelim}{\addslash}}

The standard delimiter will then be used in the bibliography.

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You could also do the opposite and redefine the standard delimiters to be \addslash

\renewcommand*{\multinamedelim}{\addslash}
\renewcommand*{\finalnamedelim}{\addslash}

And change the delimiters for the bibliography

\AtBeginBibliography{%
  \renewcommand*{\multinamedelim}{\addcomma\space}
  \renewcommand*{\finalnamedelim}{%
    \ifnumgreater{\value{liststop}}{2}{\finalandcomma}{}%
    \addspace\bibstring{and}\space}}

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For more on these hooks into citations or bibliographies, p. 219 §4.10.6 General Purpose Hooks of the biblatex documentation might be of interest to you.