Biblatex entries for conference proceedings published as journal issues

Question

The biblatex manual writes that the proceedings entry type is for "A single-volume conference proceedings" and does not include "journaltitle" as an optional field. How should I enter conference proceedings that are published as journal issues instead of as standalone volumes? If I use @Proceedings, then the generated entries do not mention the journal title. The periodical entry captures special issues of journals, but it does not allow me to enter relevant conference information (e.g., the event* and venue fields).

As a concrete example, the following entries generate the output below, with no mention of the fact that the volume/issue/page numbers are for the journal "Theoretical Computer Science":

@InProceedings{haghverdi_scott_2006:_categ_model_geomet_inter,
  author =   {Haghverdi, Esfandiar and Scott, Philip},
  title =    {A Categorical Model for the Geometry of Interaction},
  pages =    {252-274},
  doi =      {10.1016/j.tcs.2005.10.028},
  crossref =     {sannella_2006:_autom_languag_progr},
}

@Proceedings{sannella_2006:_autom_languag_progr,
  date =     {2006-02-07},
  editor =   {Sannella, Donald},
  eventdate =    {2004-07-12/2004-07-16},
  eventtitle =   {31st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages
          and Programming (ICALP 2004)},
  issn =     {0304-3975},
  journaltitle = {Theoretical Computer Science},
  number =   {2-3},
  organization = {European Association for Theoretical Computer
          Science},
  pages =    {163-384},
  title =    {Automata, Languages and Programming: Logic and
          Semantics (ICALP-B 2004)},
  venue =    {Turku, Finland},
  volume =   350,
}

Esfandiar Haghverdi and Philip Scott. “A Categorical Model for the Geometry of Interaction”. In: Automata, Languages and Programming: Logic and Semantics (ICALP-B 2004). 31st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP 2004) (Turku, Finland, July 12, 2004–July 16, 2004). Ed. by Donald Sannella. Vol. 350. 2-3. European Association for Theoretical Computer Science. Feb. 7, 2006, pp. 252–274. doi: 10.1016/j.tcs.2005.10.028 .

Donald Sannella, ed. Automata, Languages and Programming: Logic and Semantics (ICALP-B 2004). 31st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP 2004) (Turku, Finland, July 12–16, 2004). Vol. 350. 2-3. European Association for Theoretical Computer Science. Feb. 7, 2006, pp. 163–384.

Answer 1

Since the paper was published in a journal, I would simply use the @article entry type. By default @article has no support for eventtitle, eventdate and venue so that these conference details would not be printed.

For most intents and purposes that is probably fine (the reference can still be identified uniquely from the other data), but in some cases it might be desirable to show the conference details (reference lists for CVs come to mind). A particularly simple way to shoehorn the conference name into the entry is by way of the issuetitle field, which was specifically designed to hold the title of a special issue like a conference issue of a journal.

If that is still not enough, you can redefine the journal+issuetitle macro to include event+venue+date information.

\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}

\usepackage[style=numeric, backend=biber]{biblatex}

\renewbibmacro*{journal+issuetitle}{%
  \usebibmacro{journal}%
  \setunit*{\addspace}%
  \iffieldundef{series}
    {}
    {\newunit
     \printfield{series}%
     \setunit{\addspace}}%
  \usebibmacro{volume+number+eid}%
  \setunit{\addspace}%
  \usebibmacro{issue+date}%
  \setunit{\addcolon\space}%
  \usebibmacro{issue}%
  \newunit
  \usebibmacro{event+venue+date}%
  \newunit}

\begin{filecontents}[force]{\jobname.bib}
@article{haghverdi:simple,
  author  = {Haghverdi, Esfandiar and Scott, Philip},
  title   = {A Categorical Model for the Geometry of Interaction},
  journal = {Theoretical Computer Science},
  volume  = {350},
  number  = {2--3},
  date    = {2006},
  pages   = {252-274},
  doi     = {10.1016/j.tcs.2005.10.028},
}
@article{haghverdi:issuetitle,
  author     = {Haghverdi, Esfandiar and Scott, Philip},
  title      = {A Categorical Model for the Geometry of Interaction},
  journal    = {Theoretical Computer Science},
  volume     = {350},
  number     = {2--3},
  date       = {2006},
  pages      = {252-274},
  doi        = {10.1016/j.tcs.2005.10.028},
  issuetitle = {Automata, Languages and Programming: Logic and Semantics (ICALP-B 2004)},
  editor     = {D. Sannella},
}
@article{haghverdi:eventtitle,
  author     = {Haghverdi, Esfandiar and Scott, Philip},
  title      = {A Categorical Model for the Geometry of Interaction},
  journal    = {Theoretical Computer Science},
  volume     = {350},
  number     = {2--3},
  date       = {2006},
  pages      = {252-274},
  doi        = {10.1016/j.tcs.2005.10.028},
  eventtitle = {Automata, Languages and Programming: Logic and Semantics (ICALP-B 2004)},
  eventdate  = {2004-07-12/2004-07-16},
  venue      = {Turku, Finland},
  editor     = {D. Sannella},
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}


\begin{document}
\cite{haghverdi:simple,haghverdi:issuetitle,haghverdi:eventtitle}
\printbibliography
\end{document}