How to include date for each item in *RefTeX Select*?

Question

With RefTeX C-c [ invokes reftex-citation which first asks for a citation format (what citation macro to use, e.g. \cite or \footcite), then it asks for a regex to search the bibliography database and after you input one it shows the search results (in a buffer named *RefTeX Select*) and lets you choose one bibliography item to put in the citation macro. The list which contains the search results can look like the following screenshot:

Notice that the list includes the key for each item as well as information such as author and title but that the year or date for an item is not displayed. Is is possible to configure RefTeX so that the date is listed for each item in *RefTeX Select*?

The reason I am asking for this is that including dates in the list might make it easier to distinguish between similar entries (which may not be exemplified by the included screenshot).

I am using RefTeX 4.31 in GNU Emacs 23.3.1. On my setup the variable reftex-bib-year-face's value is font-lock-comment-face.

Answer 1

Reftex does not display the date field in the citation list, by design, only the year field. There is no option to tweak to correct this. You can fix this by modifying the responsible code directly, however.

It's a rather long function, and it only requires a very small change. I've modified the 'year' value that is displayed, so that it will contain both the year and the date. I assume there will only ever be one or the other, so you should see what you want. Add this to your .emacs and see how it works:

(eval-after-load "reftex-cite" 
  '(defun reftex-format-bib-entry (entry)
     ;; Format a BibTeX ENTRY so that it is nice to look at
     (let*
         ((auth-list (reftex-get-bib-names "author" entry))
          (authors (mapconcat 'identity auth-list ", "))

          ;; modified code here:
          (year      (concat (reftex-get-bib-field "year" entry)
                             (reftex-get-bib-field "date" entry)))
          ;; end modified code

          (title     (reftex-get-bib-field "title" entry))
          (type      (reftex-get-bib-field "&type" entry))
          (key       (reftex-get-bib-field "&key"  entry))
          (extra
           (cond
            ((equal type "article")
             (concat (reftex-get-bib-field "journal" entry) " "
                     (reftex-get-bib-field "volume" entry) ", "
                     (reftex-get-bib-field "pages" entry)))
            ((equal type "book")
             (concat "book (" (reftex-get-bib-field "publisher" entry) ")"))
            ((equal type "phdthesis")
             (concat "PhD: " (reftex-get-bib-field "school" entry)))
            ((equal type "mastersthesis")
             (concat "Master: " (reftex-get-bib-field "school" entry)))
            ((equal type "inbook")
             (concat "Chap: " (reftex-get-bib-field "chapter" entry)
                     ", pp. " (reftex-get-bib-field "pages"   entry)))
            ((or (equal type "conference")
                 (equal type "incollection")
                 (equal type "inproceedings"))
             (reftex-get-bib-field "booktitle" entry "in: %s"))
            (t ""))))
       (setq authors (reftex-truncate authors 30 t t))
       (when (reftex-use-fonts)
         (put-text-property 0 (length key)     'face
                            (reftex-verified-face reftex-label-face
                                                  'font-lock-constant-face
                                                  'font-lock-reference-face)
                            key)
         (put-text-property 0 (length authors) 'face reftex-bib-author-face
                            authors)
         (put-text-property 0 (length year)    'face reftex-bib-year-face
                            year)
         (put-text-property 0 (length title)   'face reftex-bib-title-face
                            title)
         (put-text-property 0 (length extra)   'face reftex-bib-extra-face
                            extra))
       (concat key "\n     " authors " " year " " extra "\n     " title "\n\n"))))

Answer 2

In my version of RefTeX (which I installed as part of TeX Live 2011), the behavior you'd like to see is enabled automatically. I took a look at some of the RefTeX configuration options, and one thing for you to try might be the reftex-sort-bibtex-matches, which can be done by year. That's the option that's enabled for me by default.