BibTeX style that groups by author

Question

I'm looking for a BibTeX style that formats the reference list at the end in the way shown below. The key points are:

• The references are sorted by the (list of) authors, and then each author has a list of references keyed by year.
• Each author has a full line for the name, and then the references for that author are listed below with no name, not even "—"

I'm not too worried about the exact punctuation; if I had any class that sorted by authors, I could hack the punctuation if I had to.

I have seen this style in various books. One modern example is Jech's Set Theory, 3rd edition. But I have never found a BibTeX style that generates this kind of output.

---

Example of desired output:

Jones, Sam 
[2001] "Paper", Journal, etc
[2002] "Other paper", Journal, etc

Lewis, Jo
[1999a] Some book, Publisher, etc
[1999b] "Another paper", Big Journal, etc

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Answer 1

I finally managed to create a solution using biblatex. This package by default replaces recurring author or editor names with a dash, and the macros involved can be redefined to achieve "grouping by author":

• Set the \bibnamesep length (which controls the spacing between different authors) to a positive value;
• Redefine \bibnamedash (which is invoked to typset the "recurring" dash) to do nothing;
• Create a new macro \authoryearpunct that a) starts a new line b) for this line, undoes the hanging indentation controlled by the \bibhang length c) capitalizes the following string (e.g. "Editor")
• Insert this macro at the appropriate places (whenever author/editor names are actually typeset);
• Reformat the year (brackets instead of braces, no period).

Annotations like "Editor" and "Translator" will be typeset at the start of the new line, which accounts for the possibility that the same person is author of one cited work and editor/translator of another.

EDIT: Your style example includes no works with editor instead of author. That said, it should be possible to put the "editor" annotation after the year (immediately before the title).

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[style=authoryear]{biblatex}

\setlength{\bibnamesep}{\baselineskip}
\renewcommand*{\bibnamedash}{}
\newcommand*{\authoryearpunct}{\\\hspace*{-\bibhang}\bibsentence}
\renewcommand*{\labelnamepunct}{\addspace}

\makeatletter

\renewbibmacro*{date+extrayear}{%
  \iffieldundef{year}
    {}
%    {\printtext[parens]{\printdateextra}}}% DELETED
    {\printtext[brackets]{\printdateextra}}}% NEW

\renewbibmacro*{author}{%
  \ifboolexpr{
    test \ifuseauthor
    and
    not test {\ifnameundef{author}}
  }
    {\usebibmacro{bbx:dashcheck}
       {\bibnamedash}
       {\usebibmacro{bbx:savehash}%
        \printnames{author}%
%   \iffieldundef{authortype}% DELETED
%     {\setunit{\addspace}}% DELETED
%     {\setunit{\addcomma\space}}}% DELETED
    \setunit{\authoryearpunct}}% NEW
     \iffieldundef{authortype}
       {}
       {\usebibmacro{authorstrg}%
    \setunit{\addspace}}}%
    {\global\undef\bbx@lasthash
     \usebibmacro{labeltitle}%
     \setunit*{\addspace}}%
  \usebibmacro{date+extrayear}}

\renewbibmacro*{bbx:editor}[1]{%
  \ifboolexpr{
    test \ifuseeditor
    and
    not test {\ifnameundef{editor}}
  }
    {\usebibmacro{bbx:dashcheck}
       {\bibnamedash}
       {\printnames{editor}%
%   \setunit{\addcomma\space}% DELETED
    \setunit{\authoryearpunct}% NEW
    \usebibmacro{bbx:savehash}}%
     \usebibmacro{#1}%
     \clearname{editor}%
     \setunit{\addspace}}%
    {\global\undef\bbx@lasthash
     \usebibmacro{labeltitle}%
     \setunit*{\addspace}}%
  \usebibmacro{date+extrayear}}

\renewbibmacro*{bbx:translator}[1]{%
  \ifboolexpr{
    test \ifusetranslator
    and
    not test {\ifnameundef{translator}}
  }
    {\usebibmacro{bbx:dashcheck}
       {\bibnamedash}
       {\printnames{translator}%
%   \setunit{\addcomma\space}% DELETED
    \setunit{\authoryearpunct}% NEW
    \usebibmacro{bbx:savehash}}%
     \usebibmacro{translator+othersstrg}%
     \clearname{translator}%
     \setunit{\addspace}}%
    {\global\undef\bbx@lasthash
     \usebibmacro{labeltitle}%
     \setunit*{\addspace}}%
  \usebibmacro{date+extrayear}}

\makeatother

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@misc{a01,
  author = {Author, A.},
  year = {2001},
  title = {Alpha},
}
@misc{a02,
  author = {Author, A.},
  year = {2002},
  title = {A title that goes to great lengthts in expounding the matter at hand and therefore doesn't fit into one line},
}
@misc{b03,
  editor = {Buthor, B.},
  year = {2003},
  title = {Bravo},
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\nocite{*}

\begin{document}

\printbibliography

\end{document}

EDIT: Somehow this worked without the \makeatletter-\makeatother combo. Added nevertheless.

Answer 2

Try the biblatex-philosophy style, it does exactly what you want.

Answer 3

The jurabib style/package is able to do something sort of like this, if you use it with the bibformat=ibidemalt option.

\usepackage[bibformat=ibidemalt]{jurabib}

It will group references by author name but it won't put the year in front of each one.

I would suggest contacting the authors or publishers of books you've seen that use this format, and ask if any of them were prepared using LaTeX and if so, could they point you to a BibTeX style file that does what you want. If not, you could try to prepare a custom style file that does it for you, probably by copying jurabib.sty and modifying it. BibTeX uses a wacky language to define styles, but once you spend some time with it, it's not too opaque. (Alternatively: search this site for a mention of biblatex, which might be easier if it works for you)

Answer 4

Since neither of the answers was very satisfying, I spent an afternoon with btxhak.pdf learning BibTex. I modified the amsalpha style to produce the type of output I was looking for. This is just a rough hack; it would need to be proofread very carefully for any production document. But it does seem to do the job. Since there is no way to post files here, all I can do is link to them: example pdf and source code .tar.gz