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I have created a document called "myfile.tex" with the following code. 

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

As we can see in \cite{goossens93}...

\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{testbib}
\end{document}

This compiles fine in PDFLatex however when I try to run bibtex to create the references I get the following error. 

I couldn't open file name `myfile.bib.aux'

Does anyone have any idea what Im doing wrong?

Edit to respond to comments:

I am running bibtex on myfile. There is no myfile.bib the bib file is called testbib

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  • 1
    How exactly are you running BibTeX? It sounds as if you are trying to run it on the .bib file rather than the .tex file. – Joseph Wright♦ Jan 26 '13 at 16:08
  • 2
    bibtex myfile not bibtex myfile.bib – David Carlisle Jan 26 '13 at 16:08
  • 3
    Your given MWE must be a .tex file to be compiled. The bib file contains the entrys for your bibliography ... So rename myfile.bib to myfile.tex ... – Mensch Jan 26 '13 at 16:10
  • no, i am running bibtex on the .tex file. – Chris Headleand Jan 26 '13 at 16:12
  • 1
    well bibtex thinks that your tex file was called mytex.bib and it is looking for the aux file. So it and/or latex are confused, delete all the files except myfile.tex and testbib.bib and run pdflatex myfile;bibtex myfile; pdflatex myfile and things should get back in sync – David Carlisle Jan 26 '13 at 16:24
1

Store the following complete MWE as file mb-bibtex.tex. Then compile: pdflatex mb-bibtex.tex. It creates a file mb-bibtex.bib (package filecontents). Compile two more times and you will get a result as expected ...

%http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/95455/problem-compiling-document#95455
%File mb-bibtex.tex, then \jobname = mb-bibtex
\RequirePackage{filecontents}        % loading package filecontents
% writing file \jobname.bib, for example mb-bibtex.bib.
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@Book{companion,
  author    = {Goossens, Michel and Mittelbach, Frank and Samarin, Alexander},
  title     = {The LaTeX Companion},
  edition   = {1},
  publisher = {Addison-Wesley},
  location  = {Reading, Mass.},
  year      = {1994},
}
@Book{adams,
  title     = {The Restaurant at the End of the Universe},
  author    = {Douglas Adams},
  series    = {The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy},
  publisher = {Pan Macmillan},
  year      = {1980},
}
\end{filecontents*}


\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
Test of bibliography: 
The \LaTeX{} companion~\cite{companion}, the funny book of Adams~\cite{adams}.

\bibliographystyle{plain}  
\bibliography{\jobname}       % uses \jobname.bib, according to \jobname.tex
\end{document}

Your error was to name a .tex file (containing TeX code) as .bib file.

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