RE: [Groff] Re: query w.r.t. references follow-up

[Andy Dougherty]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2000, Ted Harding wrote:

> On 18-Jan-00 Dean Allen Provins wrote:
> > 
> > What I really want is a sorted list of my text database(s).  Sort key
> > should be by authors, and/or date of publication.

> groff itself does not have a utility for this. Other UNIX installations
> of troff may have a program called sortbib which does just that, for
> refer databases.

> If push comes to shove, as they say, you could do it with a couple
> of awk scripts.

First, I'd go hunting . . ..  I found this site: 

        http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~jacobsd/index.html

which contains a package 'bp' that has a program called "bibsort" which,
it appears, is intended to do just what the original poster may have
wanted.

If I were to try to do this myself, I would be *strongly* inclined to use
perl and the Text::Refer module (see http://www.cpan.org and look for
modules and eventually you'll find Text::Refer).  A very long time ago I
once wrote a similar script and I recall that handling all the details
right was a pain.

    Andy Dougherty              address@hidden
    Dept. of Physics
    Lafayette College, Easton PA 18042