BibTool Manual Reference Manual Output File Specification and Status Reporting

Output File Specification and Status Reporting

By default, the processed BibTeX entries are written to the standard output. This output can be redirected to a file using the command line option -o as in

bibtool -o output_file

The resource name output.file can also be used for this purpose.

output.file = {output_file}

No provisions are made to check if the output file is the same as a input file.

A second output stream is used to display error messages and status reports. The standard error stream is used for this purpose.

The messages can roughly be divided in three categories: error messages, warnings, and status reports. Error messages indicate severe problems. They can not be suppressed. Warnings indicate possible problems which could (possibly) have been corrected. They are displayed by default but can be suppressed. Status reports are messages during the processing which indicate actions currently performed. They are suppressed by default but can be enabled.

Warning messages can be suppressed using the command line option -q. This option toggles the boolean quiet value.

bibtool -q

The same effect can be obtained by assigning the value on or off to the resource quiet:

quiet = on

Status reports are useful to see the operations performed. They can be enabled using the command line option -v. This option toggles the boolean verbose value.

bibtool -v

The same can also be achieved with the boolean resource verbose:

verbose = on

Another output stream can be used to select the string definitions. This is described in section Strings --- also called Macros on macros.

Summary

BibTool Manual Reference Manual Output File Specification and Status Reporting