Preparation
The following files are the ones I used to test and edit the sn-aps.bst file from this Overleaf link. The bst file has 1531 lines. I won't copy it here, I'll constantly refer to its lines.
MWE
\documentclass{book}
\bibliographystyle{sn-aps}
\def\bibcommenthead{}
\begin{document}
\nocite{*}
\bibliography{test.bib}
\end{document}
bib file
Please, notice I added a book entry and also the url field to all entries.
@article{Hirt1974,
author = "Hirt, C. W. and Amsden, A. A. and Cook, J. L.",
title = "An arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian computing method for all flow speeds",
year = "1974",
journal = "J. Comput. Phys.",
volume = "14",
number = "3",
pages = "227--253",
url = "url"
}
@article{Liska2010,
author = "Liska, R. and Shashkov, M. and Vachal, P. and Wendroff, B. and Author, A. B. and Author, B. B. and Author, C. C.",
title = "Optimization-based synchronized flux-corrected conservative interpolation (remapping) of mass and momentum for arbitrary {L}agrangian-{E}ulerian methods",
year = "2010",
journal = "J. Comput. Phys.",
volume = "229",
number = "5",
pages = "1467--1497",
url = "url"
}
@book{Book1974,
author = "Book, C. W. and Buch, A. A. and Livro, J. L.",
title = "The title of the book",
year = "2022",
publisher = "J. Comput. Phys.",
pages = "100",
url = "url"
}
Let's edit the BeaST
How to proceed when you must edit a bst.
- Keep calm and Tame The BeaST.
- Read about RPN Reverse Polish Notation.
- Create a copy of the original bst.
- Don't be afraid of inserting any nonsense set of letters to find out what does what.
That said. Let's proceed to how the bst works. For quick reference, check session 15 The structure of a .bst file in the Tame the BeaST documentation.
At the very end there will be a set of instructions with READ, EXECUTE, ITERATE and some others. They are the ones that actually "do the work", it means, this is the section that calls whatever is behind the bst file, for our porpoises here, the FUNCTIONs.
FUNCTIONs are often related to the ENTRYs, but not strictly related. In this example, we'll look for FUNCTION {article}, there is an ENTRY for article, it means this bst recognizes article (article is the most common, for example, phdthesis is not that common).
In sn-aps.bst, the FUNCTION {article} is at line 1117. Its second instruction reads format.authors "author" output.check.
FUNCTION {format.authors} is at line 495, but it doesn't do much, it calls another function to format author's names.
FUNCTION {format.names} is at line 450 (Are you realizing we are always going backwards? Each function can only depend on a previous defined function.). Here we can recognize some interesting names such as duplicate, nameptr (name pointer), format.name at line 461, and a very important ", " * at line 467 and "," * -- these are the commas between names and the comma before the last name.
For example, I edited ", AA " * ", BB" * and the results were
Moving on. Still on this function, as we found the comma insertion code, the point for abbreviations must be before line 467. That's exactly at line 460 "{f{.}.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}" the one before format.name.
For our first test, let's be silly and write: "{f{. +}.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}",
For our real porpoise, let's just add and space: "{f{. }.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}". If you need a different size space, you may code it there.
Quick Note: Remember of compiling latex and BibTeX in order to update results.
Next issue, the period at the end of each reference block.
Once again, let's focus on the FUNCTION {article}. At line 1130 there is: format.date "year" output.check. It is fair enough to guess this instruction writes (YYYY) at the reference block. And more important, that's not the last instruction of this FUNCTION. Without loss of generality, let me add url = "url" to each of your bib entries.
Now the result is:
That's very interesting. I shall not edit format.date, I shall add an instruction to write a period at the end of the whole FUNCTION {article} block. The last instruction is fin.entry, but look, there is new.block between each type of field inserted. If I comment % new.block at line 1130, we'll get a comma instead of a period between (YYYY) and URL.
So I have a few options:
- Change
fin.entry for a new.block, but it would imply in doing it for each FUNCTION that formats entries, I should repeat the process for FUNCTION {book} (line 1148), FUNCTION {booklet} (line 1184), etc. It seems to be too much work for any lazy person like me.
- Why not editing
FUNCTION {fin.entry} at line 123?
- Editing line 124:
{ "\!\!." * duplicate$ empty$. It does correctly the period of your first reference block, but does wrong the second. Where \! is a negative space. Not elegant, not totally correct.
- Editing line 124:
{ add.period$ duplicate$ empty$. It keeps the previous problem.
What is actually going on? There is an instruction named add.blank at line 1143, which is used only for FUNCTION {article}, it adds some white space that will only be needed if format.primaryClass is used. I don't feel comfortable adding negative spaces, so I prefer to comment add.blank and edit FUNCTION {fin.entry} because it'll be applied for every other type of bib entry recognized in this bst file.
Therefore. Let's comment add.blank at line 1143, and change line 124 into:
{ add.period$ duplicate$ empty$ or { "." empty$, as both have the same effect for FUNCTION {fin.entry}.
In order to have a more complete example, I added a book entry in the bib file in order to test the final period. It works like a charm.
Notes
About other possible editing you might desire.
If you need to change the sequence which contents from fields are displaced, change the order at the respective FUNCTION, but you shall not take it as a standard procedure.
Correcting this or that small detail, such as a comma, an italic, a bold number, etc. is acceptable since whoever created the style might have missed it. Changing the conjunction and for your local language is also a very acceptable edition.
Changing the whole sequence in which fields are presented is quite odd and basically tell us the style you are using is not the style you should be using. If this is the case, you shall look for the correct BibTeX style that actually creates the style you need. If there is no one, then (1) edit the closest bst as you need, or (2) take "two kilograms of patience and run makebst".
About this answer.
I honestly hope this answer helps you and future people coming into this forum to understand how to perform small editions into a bst file, and how to think and what to look for while hunting for the correct place to change something.
Editing bst files is always complicated, it is a mess, it takes time to understand the work of someone else. I learned it the hard way in 2015, because I needed a style given by a standard whose closest bst was out of dated and no one was in charge of its maintenance, and no one I had contact knew how to edit bst files.
tex makebst. Alternatively , you could try to switch to biblatex that allow a "easier" (note the quotes) customization without dealing with .bst files.FUNCTIONinside the.bstmust be edited. Please, could you confirm if thesn-aps.bstis the same from this link? If it is, I'll take a look inside the file and write an answer with the editions.