Crate bibparser

This crate allows to read .bib files in pure, safe rust.

.bib files are popular in reference management since many resources allow to export metadata in a BibTeχ or BibLaTeχ file. One entry in such a file can look like this:

@book{DBLP:books/aw/Knuth73a,
    author    = {Donald E. Knuth},
    title     = {The Art of Computer Programming, Volume {I:} Fundamental Algorithms,
                 2nd Edition},
    publisher = {Addison-Wesley},
    year      = {1973},
    url       = {https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/310903895},
    isbn      = {0201038218},
    timestamp = {Fri, 17 Jul 2020 16:12:45 +0200},
    biburl    = {https://dblp.org/rec/books/aw/Knuth73a.bib},
    bibsource = {dblp computer science bibliography, https://dblp.org}
 }

(original source) In this example, we call book, a kind or type. We call DBLP:books/aw/Knuth73a, an ID. Then we have a sequence of fields with name (like year) and data (like 1973). The formal grammar is not well-specified, but the biblatex package documentation and Tame the BeaST provide some insights.

Its API is built around the idea of iterating over the bib file’s entries: The API looks as follows:

use bibparser::Parser;
use std::str::FromStr;
fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    //let mut p = Parser::from_file("source.bib")?;
    let mut p = Parser::from_str(r#"@book{tolkien1937, author = {J. R. R. Tolkien}}"#)?;
    for result in p.iter() {
        let entry = result?;
        println!("type = {}", entry.kind);
        println!("id = {}", entry.id);
        for (name, data) in entry.fields.iter() {
            println!("\t{}\t= {}", name, data);
        }
    }
    Ok(())
}

Since data is often some Teχ-like syntax, we provide the method unicode_data with entry in order to generate a representation close to Unicode; resolving some Teχ semantics.

Currently, the entries are read at once. The entire source string is kept in memory and parsed at once. This is meant to be changed in upcoming releases.

Structs

BibEntries

A stateful iterator yielding one BibEntry instance after another

BibEntry

One entry in a .bib file

Parser

Parser parsing a .bib file allowing iteration over BibEntry instances