Undefined control sequence \bbljan

Question

I'm writing a bibliography for an article in Russian. Using \bibliographystyle{plain} is not an option, since it uses e.g. conjunction "and" when listing authors. So I'm sticking to \bibliographystyle{ugost2008}, but it keeps complaining that \bbljan is undefined. I assume that \bbljan should expand to "January" for English and to "Январь" for Russian. My babel apparently doesn't know anything about \bbljan though. I'm currently using

\def\bbljan{Январь}

but isn't it lame? What should I do?

Answer 1

The \bbljan macro is set up in merlin.mbs, the master file for creating BibTeX styles with the custom-bib system. Thus you find \bbljan mainly in .bst files created this way. Presumably, the author of ugost2008 used custom-bib but then removed the part that sets up \bbljan (etc.) for some reason. The work-around is to define these yourself, as you've done, but ideally the .bst file should be fixed either to define the macros correctly or not to use them at all.

Answer 2

My preamble holds next definitions

\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\bibliographystyle{ugost2008ns}
\usepackage[numbers,square]{natbib}
\newfontfamily\russianfont{Times New Roman}
\setmainfont{Times New Roman}

and i have same problem with \bbljan, \bblfeb, ... functions.

First, i done some rewrite ugost2008ns which located in /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/bibtex/bst/gost/ugost2008ns.bst

I replace all \bbl* functions to another which executes right in ugost2008ns

MACRO {jan} {"jan"}
MACRO {feb} {"feb"}
MACRO {mar} {"mar"}
MACRO {apr} {"apr"}
MACRO {may} {"may"}
MACRO {jun} {"jun"}
MACRO {jul} {"jul"}
MACRO {aug} {"aug"}
MACRO {sep} {"sep"}
MACRO {oct} {"oct"}
MACRO {nov} {"nov"}
MACRO {dec} {"dec"}

Here is my new format.date function which implements those \bbl*

FUNCTION {format.date}
{ year empty$
    { month empty$
        { "" }
        { "there's a month but no year in " cite$ * warning$
          month
        }
      if$}
    { curlanguage "russian" =
         { month empty$
            { year }
            { month "jan" =
                { year "\cyrya\cyrn\cyrv." }
            { month "feb" =
                { year "\cyrf\cyre\cyrv\cyrr." }
            { month "mar" =
                { year "\cyrm\cyra\cyrr\cyrt" }
            { month "apr" =
                { year "\cyra\cyrp\cyrr." }
            { month "may" =
                { year "\cyrm\cyra\cyrishrt" }
            { month "jun" =
                { year "\cyri\cyryu\cyrn\cyrsftsn" }
            { month "jul" =
                { year "\cyri\cyryu\cyrl\cyrsftsn" }
            { month "aug" =
                { year \cyra\cyrv\cyrg\. }
            { month "sep" =
                { year "\cyrs\cyre\cyn\cyrt." }
            { month "oct" =
                { year "\cyro\cyrk\cyrt." }
            { month "nov" =
                { year "\cyrn\cyro\cyrya\cyrb." }
            { month "dec" =
                { year "\cyrd\cyre\cyrk." }
            { year "Nomember" }
            if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}
         { month empty$
            { year }
            { month "jan" =
               { year "Jan." }
            { month "feb" =
               { year "Feb." }
            { month "mar" =
               { year "Mar." }
            { month "apr" =
               { year "Apr." }
            { month "may" =
               { year "May" }
            { month "jun" =
               { year "June" }
            { month "jul" =
               { year "July" }
            { month "aug" =
               { year "Aug." }
            { month "sep" =
               { year "Sept." }
            { month "oct" =
               { year "Oct" }
            { month "nov" =
               { year "Nov." }
            { month "dec" =
               { year "Dec." }
            { year "Nomember" }
            if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}if$}
         if$}
    if$}
  extra.label * % new in v.1.2
}

Abbreviations of months done according to GOST 7.12-93 and GOST 7.11-2004 (ISO 832:1994).

After this i received new error - "command \cyra, \cyrb, ... unavailable in encoding EU1". This problem caused by hyperref package. To resolve, I put next code just right before \begin{document}.

\newcommand{\cyr}[0]{}
\renewcommand{\cyra}[0]{а}
\renewcommand{\cyrb}[0]{б}
\renewcommand{\cyrv}[0]{в}
\renewcommand{\cyrg}[0]{г}
\renewcommand{\cyrd}[0]{д}
\renewcommand{\cyre}[0]{е}
\renewcommand{\cyryo}[0]{ё}
\renewcommand{\cyrzh}[0]{ж}
\renewcommand{\cyrz}[0]{з}
\renewcommand{\cyri}[0]{и}
\renewcommand{\cyrishrt}[0]{й}
\renewcommand{\cyrk}[0]{к}
\renewcommand{\cyrl}[0]{л}
\renewcommand{\cyrm}[0]{м}
\renewcommand{\cyrn}[0]{н}
\renewcommand{\cyro}[0]{о}
\renewcommand{\cyrp}[0]{п}
\renewcommand{\cyrr}[0]{р}
\renewcommand{\cyrs}[0]{с}
\renewcommand{\cyrt}[0]{т}
\renewcommand{\cyru}[0]{у}
\renewcommand{\cyrf}[0]{ф}
\renewcommand{\cyrh}[0]{х}
\renewcommand{\cyrc}[0]{ц}
\renewcommand{\cyrch}[0]{ч}
\renewcommand{\cyrsh}[0]{ш}
\renewcommand{\cyrshch}[0]{щ}
\renewcommand{\cyrsftsn}[0]{ь}
\renewcommand{\cyrery}[0]{ы}
\renewcommand{\cyrhrdsn}[0]{ъ}
\renewcommand{\cyrerev}[0]{э}
\renewcommand{\cyryu}[0]{ю}
\renewcommand{\cyrya}[0]{я}

\renewcommand{\CYRA}[0]{А}
\renewcommand{\CYRB}[0]{Б}
\renewcommand{\CYRV}[0]{В}
\renewcommand{\CYRG}[0]{Г}
\renewcommand{\CYRD}[0]{Д}
\renewcommand{\CYRE}[0]{Е}
\renewcommand{\CYRYO}[0]{Ё}
\renewcommand{\CYRZH}[0]{Ж}
\renewcommand{\CYRZ}[0]{З}
\renewcommand{\CYRI}[0]{И}
\renewcommand{\CYRY}[0]{Й}
\renewcommand{\CYRK}[0]{К}
\renewcommand{\CYRL}[0]{Л}
\renewcommand{\CYRM}[0]{М}
\renewcommand{\CYRN}[0]{Н}
\renewcommand{\CYRO}[0]{О}
\renewcommand{\CYRP}[0]{П}
\renewcommand{\CYRR}[0]{Р}
\renewcommand{\CYRS}[0]{С}
\renewcommand{\CYRT}[0]{Т}
\renewcommand{\CYRU}[0]{У}
\renewcommand{\CYRF}[0]{Ф}
\renewcommand{\CYRH}[0]{Х}
\renewcommand{\CYRC}[0]{Ц}
\renewcommand{\CYRCH}[0]{Ч}
\renewcommand{\CYRSH}[0]{Ш}
\renewcommand{\CYRSHCH}[0]{Щ}
\renewcommand{\CYRSFTSN}[0]{Ь}
\renewcommand{\CYRERY}[0]{Ы}
\renewcommand{\CYRHRDSN}[0]{Ъ}
\renewcommand{\CYREREV}[0]{Э}
\renewcommand{\CYRYU}[0]{Ю}
\renewcommand{\CYRYA}[0]{Я}

I use: linux, kile, XeLaTeX to compile and Zotero to import BiBtex (also hacked by me because it doesn't provide native russian support).

Maybe this may be optimized or done much easier but I use all this stuff less then a month.

Hope this help.