I was very happy to come across this answer: https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/212133/69378 which I hoped would allow me to Export only used items
in a bibliography by making a call to jabref via the command line. I haven't been able to fully explore another answer to the same question (https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/41823/69378) which proposes bibexport
(mainly because it's not available on MikTeX
).
I prepped a windows command line command of the form: JabRef.jar -a filename[.aux],newBibFile[.bib]
which I interpreted to be: "F:\JabRef_3.6.jar" -n -a "test_article.aux","test_article.bib"
I have tried everything I can think of including all combinations of the preceding command and iteratively changing through:
- omitting the
-n
to open the JabRef GUI - omitting the quotes
- omitting the comma and using two arguments following the
-a
- using complete file paths for both files
- removing file extensions and relying on the order to imply
[.aux]
and[.bib]
- using the square brackets on the file names
test_article[.aux]
andtest_article[.bib]
- using
new_test_article
as the file name - having an empty
test_article.bib
file waiting in case the program can't create it, but just append - tested using
JabRef-2.10.jar
andJabRef_3.6.jar
Difficulty Sadly, after iterating through everyone of these options nothing I do gives me abib
file.
UPDATE 1
My link in the comment below to where I found the syntax originated from an old server, their current FAQ (http://www.jabref.org/faq/) only describes the procedure:
Q: I have a JabRef database and I would like to export the subset corresponding to my LaTeX file. How to do this?
A: Upon compilation, LaTeX generates a file with the extension “.aux”. This files contains the keys of the cited references (among other things). Using this AUX file, JabRef can extract the relevant entries. Choose the menu Tools->New subdatabase based on AUX file. Then select the reference database (among the opened ones), and specify the AUX file.
I can confirm that this manual approach works fine.
The main difference between the steps in the GUI found in Tools -> New subdatabase based on AUX file
is that you also must provide a reference bib file. I find it likely that the command line version, if it is still available, will require a reference bib file as well.
Update 2
New link with the updated command line configurations: https://help.jabref.org/en/CommandLine
I now use a command of the form JabRef.jar --aux "infile.aux","outfile.bib" "base-BibTeX-file.bib"
where each file is provided with it's complete absolute file path and name.
Unfortunately, I still don't get a file.
Has anyone ever used this line and generated a bib file from a windows command line?
--verbose
or--debug
or whatever option? Biber can do this in tool mode ... – cfr Sep 12 '16 at 22:56http://jabref.sourceforge.net/help/CommandLine.php
) there's no verbose or debug output command. It's command line capabilities are fairly minimal. In some of the conditions above (namely leaving out-n
and the,
I could get a null return dialog that only showed up with the GUI. But since I interpreted that as an excess argument that couldn't be processed because it wasn't a command formatted as the instructions indicated, I didn't detail it above. – EngBIRD Sep 12 '16 at 23:23base-BibTeX-file=base-BibTeX-file.bib
? – EngBIRD Sep 13 '16 at 20:13