Can you configure bibtex to ignore some \cite commands?

Question

When I am writing I often will realize I need to put a citation for something I wrote, but I don't have it. I like to leave myself something to remind myself which reference I need to put in once I add it to my .bib file. Like this:

This important thing\cite{Author's 2010 paper about stuff} is important 

I edit my tex source in vim and I have a vimscript defined to compile my document, but invalid \cite{} commands are not handled very gracefully. So my vimscript calls a bash script that makes a copy of my tex source with all such commands commented out. I find the "invalid" citations using a regular expression that matched my cite-key format. When my colleges ask me to help them set up something similar for themselves it gets really messy when they don't have a well defined cite-key format.

I would like to redefine the way \cite{} commands are parsed to ignore ones that begin with a specific character say *, although the specific character is not important if one choice is better than the other. So

Words in the sentence\cite{author:1990-0} more words. 

would be handled correctly but say

Words in the sentence\cite{*not a real key just a note} more words.

would be ignored. Is this possible? How could I find out?

I would also like to have a marker appear in the text to remind me I need to add something there, but that would be like a bonus not a main objective of what I need.

Answer 1

If you need the optional argument of \cite then you have to extend the code:

\documentclass{article}
\let\myCite\cite
\makeatletter
\def\cite#1{\cite@I#1!!}
\def\cite@I{\@ifnextchar*\cite@II\cite@III}
\def\cite@II#1!!{}
\def\cite@III#1!!{\myCite{#1}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

foo\cite{article-minimal} and bar\cite{*article-full}

foo\cite{*article-minimal} and bar\cite{article-full}

foo\cite{article-crossref} and bar\cite{*whole-journal}

foo\cite{*article-crossref} and bar\cite{whole-journal}

\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{xampl}
\end{document}