Glossaries - how to define newacronym that refers to a glossary entry

Question

I have a number of acronyms in my document, some of which have a more complex meaning than others, and I would like to have an accompanying linked entry for them in the glossary. I found that in order to define these cross-referenced acronyms, I was unable use the normal \newacronym command and had to use newglossaryentry instead with the type=\acronymtype key-value pair defined.

Things seemed fine until I noticed that some of my acronyms were showing up in my document even though I had not referenced them. So, after some tweaking/testing I've worked out that the see key is the source of the problem. I do like the functionality of the see key-value, so I'm looking for a solution to the problem I'm reporting rather than abandoning the idea.

Where an acronym references the glossary, I use the see key-value pair to tell it which glossary entry to point to. It appears that a side-effect of this key-value is that it forces the acronym to be displayed in the Acronyms list in the document even though it wasn't reference in the document body. In my case, something I do not want.

Below is a sample document that demonstrates how I've approached my cross-referencing need and also demonstrates the problem. Simply (un)comment the lines see=[Glossary:]{apig}, and \gls{api} then rebuild.

With see commented out, the behaviour is correct. Acronym and Glossary both have an API entry when \gls{api} is active, and neither do when not. Uncomment see, and you will now have the Acronym entry regardless of the state of \gls{api} (including a Glossary: API link that points to nothing), and when \gls{api} is active there will be a Glossary entry as expected and the link is correct. The TCP and IP acronyms work fine.

Is there a way of fixing this behaviour?

Updates Seems this may require bib2gls, which needs to be installed and it appears I don't have it because I'm unable to run the example in the glossaries-user.pdf (p25). As a result, I cannot see what the outcome would be.

At this point I don't know how to install bib2gls though it's available from CTAN and I have the necessary Java (v8+) installed.

I'm using MacOS Catalina 10.15.6 with Homebrew. I have mactex-20170524.pkg installed and use TexStudio 3.0.1.

        \documentclass{article}
        \usepackage{hyperref}
        \usepackage[acronym]{glossaries}
        %\usepackage[nonumberlist,acronym]{glossaries} %% nonumberlist also turns off 'see' .
        %\usepackage{glossaries-extra}
        %\usepackage{glossaries-prefix}
        
        \makeglossaries
        %% Set flag to include Glossary in the ToC
        %\glstoctrue
        % Set acronyms such that on first use, the whole phrase is shown along with the acronym.
        \setacronymstyle{long-short}
        % 
        \newglossaryentry{api}{
            type=\acronymtype,
            name={API},
            description={Application Programming Interface},
            first={Application Programming Interface (API)\glsadd{apig}},
             see=[Glossary:]{apig},
            %% 'see' adds a note at the end of the acronym description
            %% 'see' is turned off by global or local 'nonumberlist'
            %% Using the example above it writes 'Glossary: API' with Glossary: in italics.
        }
        
        \newglossaryentry{apig}{
            name={API},
            description={An Application Programming Interface (API) is a particular set of rules and specifications that a software program can follow to access and    make use of the services and resources provided by another particular software program that implements that API}
        }
        
        \newacronym{ip}{IP}{Internet Protocol}
        \newacronym{lan}{LAN}{Local Area Network}
        \newacronym{smp}{SMP}{Symmetric Multi-Processing}
        \newacronym{tcp}{TCP}{Transmission Control Protocol}
        
        
        \begin{document}
        
        \printglossary[type=\acronymtype]
        %%% \newpage just to demonstrate that links are correct
        \newpage
        \printglossary[type=main]
        \newpage
        
        \noindent
        \gls{tcp}
        sits on top of
        \gls{ip}
        , and you need an
        %\gls{api}
        . \\
        \\
        \noindent
        Just to repeat, 
        \gls{tcp}
        sits on top of
        \gls{ip}
        , and you need an
        %\gls{api}
        .

        \end{document}

Answer 1

The following should work:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage[acronym]{glossaries}

\makeglossaries

\glsaddstoragekey {glossterm} {}{\glossterm}

\newglossarystyle{optgloss} {
    \setglossarystyle{list}
    \let\oldglossentrydesc\glossentrydesc

    \renewcommand* {\glossentrydesc} [1] {%
        \oldglossentrydesc{##1}%
        \ifglshasfield {glossterm} {##1} {%
            \glsunset{\glscurrentfieldvalue}%
            \ \textit{Glossary:}~\gls[format=glsignore]{\glscurrentfieldvalue}%
        }{}%
    }
}

\newacronymstyle{optgloss}
    {%
        \GlsUseAcrEntryDispStyle{long-short}%
        \ifglshasfield {glossterm} {\glslabel} {%
            \glsadd{\glscurrentfieldvalue}%
        }%
    }
    {\GlsUseAcrStyleDefs{long-short}}

\setacronymstyle{optgloss}

\newglossaryentry{api}{
    type=\acronymtype,
    name={API},
    description={Application Programming Interface},
    first={Application Programming Interface (API)},
    glossterm={apig}
}

\newglossaryentry{apig}{
    name={API},
    description={An Application Programming Interface (API) is a particular set of rules and specifications that a software program can follow to access and    make use of the services and resources provided by another particular software program that implements that API}
}

\newacronym{ip}{IP}{Internet Protocol}
\newacronym{lan}{LAN}{Local Area Network}
\newacronym{smp}{SMP}{Symmetric Multi-Processing}
\newacronym{tcp}{TCP}{Transmission Control Protocol}


\begin{document}

    \printglossary[type=\acronymtype,style=optgloss]
    %%% \newpage just to demonstrate that links are correct
    \newpage
    \printglossary[type=main]
    \newpage

    \noindent
    \gls{tcp}
    sits on top of
    \gls{ip}
    , and you need an
    \gls{api}
    . \\
    \\
    \noindent
    Just to repeat, 
    \gls{tcp}
    sits on top of
    \gls{ip}
    , and you need an
    \gls{api}
    .

\end{document}

You can link to a glossary entry for an acronym by including a glossterm key and setting it to the name of the glossary entry, e.g. apig (I hope it's a cute pig! 🐷).

Page numbers where the acronym appears will show up on lists for both the acronym and the glossary entry. Note that you no longer need to put \glsadd{apig} in any of the fields when defining acronyms.

The page on which the acronym appears in the acronyms list is not included in the page list for the glossary entry. If you'd prefer it did, remove the [format=glsignore] optional argument.

Use whatever style name(s) you prefer. I used optgloss for "optional glossary link". Likewise, glossterm can be changed to anything you like, provided you keep it consistent everywhere.

Finally, note that if you eliminate an acronym, you'll need to recompile the LaTeX source, then glossaries, then source, then glossaries, and finally the source again in order for the change to appear in the glossary.