Getting rid of DOI, ISSN links from bibliography

Question

In light of this and this AND if I'd want to use pdflatex instead of biblatex, how do I get rid of doi, ISSN links from my bibliography?

I can write a script such as here but that leaves a , hanging in each of the entries?

Any comments?

Edit:

I received very nice input from Mico but I was not able to apply his recommendations (I will do it and post the result here).

Meawhile, here is one not very elegant solution I devised:

I rid my .bib file off all url, doi, issn text like this:

cat mybibfile.ib | sed -e '/url /d' > mybibfile2.bib

Then I opened my new .bib file viz, mybibfile2.bib in gedit and replaced all ,\n} with } which ensured that I didn't have a hanging comma(,) in my file.

Answer 1

One way to make BibTeX ignore fields such as doi and issn is to set the BibTeX functions that format these fields to a "dummy" instruction that does nothing at all. These functions (and all other BibTeX functions) are contained in the bibliography style file that's in use. Since you indicate that you use the unsrtnat bibliography style, you could proceed as follows:

• Find the file unsrtnat.bst on your TeX system and copy it to, say, unsrtnatDNA.bst. (Never edit the original style files.)

• Open the file unsrtnatDNA.bst in your favorite text editor. Search for the functions {format.issn} and {format.doi}. (The headers of these functions are on lines 278 and 292 in my version of the file unsrtnat.bst.) Replace their definitions -- the stuff below the respective header lines that's enclosed by a pair of curly braces -- with a "dummy" definition, viz., { }. For instance, you should change the definition of format.issn from

  FUNCTION {format.issn}
  { issn empty$
      { "" }
      { new.block "ISSN " issn * }
  if$
  }
  

  to

  FUNCTION {format.issn}
  { }
  

• Save and close the file.

• Depending on your TeX distribution, you may have to update the filename database that TeX uses to find all relevant files. For instance, if you use TeXLive, the command that updates the filename database is called texhash.

• From now one, use the command \bibliographystyle{unsrtnatDNA} in your tex files to instruct BibTeX to use your modified bibliography style file.

Answer 2

Not necessarily a elegant solution - but I wrote a quick python script a while back to solve similar problems - in principle can be used to get rid of any fields - and extended easily.

I posted it here.

http://quickscriptfixes.blogspot.com/2013/01/mendeley-bibtex-stripper-in-python.html