BIBCLEAN 1 "09 May 1998" "Version 2.11.4" [section 5 of 12]

ERROR RECOVERY AND WARNINGS

Error messages begin with a distinctive pair of queries, ??, beginning in column 1, followed by the input file name and line number. If the -file-position option was specified, they also contain the input and output positions of the current file, entry, and value. Each position includes the file byte number, the line number, and the column number. In the event of a runaway string argument, the entry and value positions should precisely pinpoint the erroneous bibliography entry, and the file positions will indicate where it was detected, which may be rather later in the files.

Warning messages identify possible problems, and are therefore sent only to stderr, and not to stdout, so they never appear in the output file. They are identified by a distinctive pair of percents, %%, beginning in column 1, and as with error messages, may be followed by file position messages if the -file-position option was specified.

For convenience, the first line of each error and warning message sent to stderr is formatted according to the expectations of the GNU Emacs next-error command. You can invoke bibclean with the Emacs M-x compile<RET>bibclean filename.bib >filename.new command, then use the next-error command, normally bound to C-x ` (that's a grave, or back, accent), to move to the location of the error in the input file.

If error messages are ignored, and left in the output bibliography file, they will precipitate an error when the bibliography is next processed with BibTeX.

After issuing an error message, bibclean then resynchronizes its input by copying it verbatim to stdout until a new bibliography entry is recognized on a line in which the first non-blank character is an at-sign (@). This ensures that nothing is lost from the input file(s), allowing corrections to be made in either the input or the output files. However, if bibclean detects an internal error in its data structures, it will terminate abruptly without further input or output processing; this kind of error should never happen, and if it does, it should be reported immediately to the author of the program. Errors in initialization files, and running out of dynamic memory, will also immediately terminate bibclean.