BIBER(1)

NAME
"biber" - A bibtex replacement for users of biblatex

SYNOPSIS
biber [options] file[.bcf] biber [options] --tool <datasource>

  Creates "file.bbl" using control file "file.bcf" (".bcf" extension is
  optional). Normaly use with biblatex requires no options as they are
  all set in biblatex and passed via the ".bcf" file

  In "tool" mode (see B<--tool> option), takes a datasource (defaults to
  "bibtex" datasource) and outputs a copy of the datasource with any command-line
  or config file options applied.

  Please run "biber --help" for option details

DESCRIPTION
"biber" provides a replacement of the bibtex processor for users of biblatex.

OPTIONS

--cache
    If running as a PAR::Packer binary, show the cache location and exit.

--clrmacros
    Clears any BibTeX macros (@STRING) between BibLaTeX refsections. This prevents BibTeX warnings about macro redefinitions if you are using the same datasource several times for different refsections.

--collate|-C
    Sort with "Unicode::Collate" instead of the built-in sort function. This is the default.

--collate-options|-c [options]
    Options to pass to the "Unicode::Collate" object used for sorting (default is 'level => "4", variable => "non-ignorable"'). See "perldoc Unicode::Collate" for details.

--configfile|-g [file]
    Use file as configuration file for "biber". The default is the first file found among biber.conf in the current directory, "$HOME/.biber.conf", or else the output of "kpsewhich biber.conf". In tool mode, (--tool) the biber-tool.conf installed with Biber is always used to set defaults before potentially overriding the defaults with a user-defined config specified with this option. Use the --tool-config option to view the location of the default tool mode config file.

--convert-control
    Converts the .bcf control file into html using an XSLT transform. Can be useful for debugging. File is named by appending ".html" to .bcf file.

--decodecharsset=[recode set name]
    The set of characters included in the conversion routine when decoding LaTeX macros into UTF-8 (which happens when --bblencoding|-E is set to UTF-8). Set to "full" to try harder with a much larger set or "base" to use a smaller basic set. Default is "base". You may want to try "full" if you have less common UTF-8 characters in your data source. The recode sets are defined in the reencoding data file which can be customised. See the --recodedata option and the PDF manual. The virtual set name "null" may be specified which effectively turns off macro decoding.

--debug|-D
    Turn on debugging for "biber".

--dot-include=section,field,xdata,crossref,xref,related
    Specifies the element to include in GraphViz DOT output format if the output format is 'dot'. You can also choose to display crossref, xref, xdata and/or related entry connections. The default if not specified is "--dot_include=section,xdata,crossref,xref".

--fastsort|-f
    Use Perl's sort instead of "Unicode::Collate" for sorting. Also uses OS locale definitions (which may be broken for some languages ...).

--fixinits
    Try to fix broken multiple initials when they have no space between them in BibTeX data sources. That is, "A.B. Clarke" becomes "A. B. Clarke" before name parsing. This can slightly mess up things like "{U.K. Government}" and other esoteric cases.

--help|-h
    Show this help message.

--input-directory [directory]
    .bcf and data files will be looked for first in the directory. See the biber PDF documentation for the other possibilities and how this interacts with the "--output_directory" option.

--input-encoding|-e [encoding]
    Specify the encoding of the data source file(s). Default is "UTF-8" Normally it's not necessary to set this as it's passed via the .bcf file from biblatex's "bibencoding" option. See "perldoc Encode::Supported" for a list of supported encodings. The legacy option --bibencoding is supported as an alias.

--input-format=bibtex|biblatexml
    Biber input format. This option only means something in tool mode (see tool option) since normally the input format of a data source is specified in the .bcf file and therefore from the \addbibresouce macro in BibLaTeX. The default value when in tool mode is 'bibtex'

--logfile [file]
    Use file.blg as the name of the logfile.

--listsep=[sep]
    Use sep as the separator for BibTeX data source list fields. Defaults to BibTeX's usual 'and'.

--mincrossrefs|-m [number]
    Set threshold for crossrefs.

--mssplit=[string]
    Character used to split bibtex data source field names into field/form/language subfields when using multiscript features. Defaults to underscore (ASCII 95).

--namesep=[sep]
    Use sep as the separator for BibTeX data source name fields. Defaults to BibTeX's usual 'and'.

--noconf
    Don't look for a configfile.

--nodieonerror
    Don't exit on errors, just log and continue as far as possible. This can be useful if the error is something from, for example, the underlying BibTeX parsing C library which can complain about parsing errors which can be ignored.

--nolog
    Do not write any logfile.

--nostdmacros
    Don't automatically define any standard macros like month abbreviations. If you also define these yourself, this option can be used to suppress macro redefinition warnings.

--onlylog
    Do not write any message to screen.

--others-string=[string]
    Use string as the final name in a name field which implies "et al". Defaults to BibTeX's usual 'others'.

--output-align
    Align field values in neat columns in output. Effect depends on the output format. Default is true. The legacy option --tool_align is supported as an alias.

--output-directory [directory]
    Output files (including log files) are output to directory instead of the current directory. Input files are also looked for in directory before current directory (but after "--input_directory" if that is specified).

--output-encoding|-E [encoding]
    Specify the encoding of the output ".bbl" file. Default is "UTF-8". Normally it's not necessary to set this as it's passed via the .bcf file from biblatex's "texencoding" option. See "perldoc Encode::Supported" for a list of supported encodings. The legacy option --bblencoding is supported as an alias.

--output-indent=[num]
    Indentation for body of entries in output. Effect depends on the output format. Defaults to 2. The legacy option --tool_indent is supported as an alias.

--output-fieldcase=upper|lower|title
    Case for field names output. Effect depends on the output format. Defaults to 'upper'. The legacy option --tool_fieldcase is supported as an alias.

--output-file|-O [file]
    Output to file instead of basename.bbl file is relative to --output_directory, if set (absolute paths in this case are stripped to filename only). file can be absolute if --output_directory is not set. The legacy option --outfile is supported as an alias.

--output-format=dot|bibtex|biblatexml|bbl
    Biber output format. Default if not specified is of course, bbl. Use dot to output a GraphViz DOT file instead of .bbl. This is a directed graph of the bibliography data showing entries and, as requested, sections and fields. You must process this file with "dot", e.g. "dot -Tsvg test.dot -o test.svg" to render the graph. See the --dot_include option to select what is included in the DOT output. The legacy option --outformat is supported as an alias.

--output-macro-fields=[field1, ... fieldn]
    A comma-separated list of field names whose values are, on output, treated as BibTeX macros. Effectively this means that they are not wrapped in braces. Effect depends on the output format. The legacy option --tool_macro_fields is supported as an alias.

--output-resolve
    Whether to resolve aliases and inheritance (XDATA, CROSSREF etc.) in tool mode. Defaults to 'false'. The legacy option --tool_resolve is supported as an alias.

--output-safechars
    Try to convert UTF-8 chars into LaTeX macros when writing the output. This can prevent unknown char errors when using PDFLaTeX and inputenc as this doesn't understand all of UTF-8. Note, it is better to switch to XeTeX or LuaTeX to avoid this situation. By default uses the --output_safecharsset "base" set of characters. The legacy option --bblsafechars is supported as an alias.

--output-safecharsset=[recode set name]
    The set of characters included in the conversion routine for --output_safechars. Set to "full" to try harder with a much larger set or "base" to use a basic set. Default is "base" which is fine for most use cases. You may need to load more macro packages to deal with the results of "full" (Dings, Greek characters, special symbols etc.). The recode sets are defined in the reencoding data file which can be customised. See the --recodedata option and the PDF manual. The legacy option --bblsafecharsset is supported as an alias. The virtual set name "null" may be specified which effectively turns off macro encoding.

--quiet|-q
    Log only errors. If this option is used more than once, don't even log errors.

--recodedata=[file]
    The data file to use for the reencoding between UTF-8 and LaTeX macros. It defines the sets specified with the --output_safecharsset and --decodecharsset options. It defaults to recode_data.xml in the same directory as Biber's Recode.pm module. See the PDF documentation for the format of this file. If this option is used, then file should be somewhere "kpsewhich" can find it.

--sortcase=true|false
    Case-sensitive sorting (default is true).

--sortfirstinits=true|false
    When sorting names, use only the first name initials, not full first name. Some people expect the biblatex firstinits option to do this but it needs to be a separate option in case users, for example, need to show only initials but sort with full first names (default is false).

--sortlocale|-l [locale]
    Set the locale to be used for sorting. With default sorting (--collate|-C), the locale is used to add CLDR tailoring to the sort (if available for the locale). With --fastsort|-f this sets the OS locale for sorting.

--sortupper=true|false
    Whether to sort uppercase before lowercase when using default sorting (--collate|-C). When using --fastsort|-f, your OS collation locale determines this and this option is ignored (default is true).

--ssl-nointernalca
    Don't try to use the default Mozilla CA certificates when using HTTPS to fetch remote data. This assumes that the user will set one of the perl LWP::UserAgent module environment variables to find the CA certs.

--ssl-noverify-host
    Turn off host verification when using HTTPS to fetch remote data sources. You may need this if the SSL certificate is self-signed for example.

--tool
    Run in tool mode. This mode is datasource centric rather than document centric. biber reads a datasource (and a config file if specified), applies the command-line and config file options to the datasource and writes a new datasource. Essentially, this allows you to change your data sources using biber's transformation options (such as source mapping, sorting etc.)

--tool-config
    Show the location of the default tool mode config file and exit. Useful when you need to copy this file and customise it.

--trace|T
    Turn on tracing. Also turns on --debug|d and additionally provides a lot of low-level tracing information in the log.

-u  Alias for --input_encoding=UTF-8

-U  Alias for --output_encoding=UTF-8

--validate-config
    Schema validate the biber config file.

--validate-control
    Schema validate the .bcf biblatex control file.

--validate-datamodel|-V
    Validate the data against a data model.

--version|-v
    Display version number.

--wraplines|-w
    Wrap lines in the .bbl file.

--xsvsep=[sep]
    Use sep as the separator for fields of format type "xsv" in the data model. A Perl regexp can be specified. Defaults to a single comma surround by optional whitespace (\s*,\s*).

AUTHOR
Francois Charette, "firmicus at ankabut.net" Philip Kime, "Philip at kime.org.uk"

BUGS & DOCUMENTATION
To see the full documentation, run texdoc biber or get the biber.pdf manual from SourceForge.

Please report any bugs or feature requests on our Github tracker at <https://github.com/plk/biber/issues>.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
Copyright 2009-2014 Francois Charette and Philip Kime, all rights reserved.

This module is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.