[NTG-context] Specifying BibTeX engine

[gnwiii at gmail.com]

On 11/4/06, Philipp Reichmuth <reichmuth at web.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> texexec has been doing the necessary BibTeX calls for some time now, but
> is there a way to configure which BibTeX engine is being called?  I am
> using BibTeX 8 (because of Unicode in my bibliography) and have been
> renaming the executable so far, but it seems there should be a better way.

I've been editing the installprogram line found with:

 $ grep bibtex $(kpsewhich t-bib.tex)
%D \item bibtex is now registered as a program to be run by texexec (8/8/2006)
%D \item support mlbibtex
    2: file -- not found, waiting for bibtex
\def\setupbibtex{\dosingleempty\dosetupbibtex}
\def\dosetupbibtex[#1]%
     \installprogram{bibtex \jobname}}}
%D This is the result of bibtex's `language' field.

to replace "bibtex" with "ctxbibtex", which is a shell script I can edit
to use bibtex8, etc. with appropriate arguments (e.g., for very
large .bib files) as well as encoding tricks.  A dirty hack is to put an

       \installprogram{ctxbibtex \jobname}}}

line in your file (after the other setup).  The job runs bibtex and
then ctxbibtex, so you end up with the results of whatever is in your
script.
In MiKTeX-2.5 this works using "ctxbibtex.cmd" scripts.

> (Incidentally, I've been using a Python script to convert BibTeX files
> between Unicode and {\=a}-style accent notation and am currently
> thinking of putting in ConTeXt {\adiaeresis}-style accents as well;
> would this be of interest to anyone?)

I use GNU recode for this, but not with ConTeXt, where
"\enableregime[utf]" has been working with my utf8 bibliography, so
I haven't needed ConTeXt {\adiaeresis}-style accents.  My main concern
is searchable .pdf files, where the default Adobe Reader configuration
at work (Win32) seems to use plain old "a" in searches when I enter á,
etc. (search for xáy finds xay, xày, etc.).

I'd prefer to see a context encoding added to GNU recode for the
benefit of future archeologists trying to decipher ancient documents.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia