Chapter 7. Data input
Prev | Part III. User manual | Next

## Chapter 7. Data input

This chapter explains the ways how you can generate reference and extended note data suitable for refdb databases. We'll cover manual generation of RIS files and automatic conversion of other bibliographic data with the help of input filters. You'll learn about writing risx documents, a new XML data format designed to simplify funneling XML or SGML bibliographic data into refdb. risx is the preferable format to fully utilize refdb's capabilities. Finally we'll cover writing extended notes that allow to append additional information to objects in your database or to categorize references in a very flexible way.

To actually import the resulting RIS datasets into the refdb database, use the addref command of the refdbc command line client, as explained in the next chapter.

## Writing RIS datasets

### Overview

The RIS format is a tagged file format with the following general rules:

- A file can hold one or more references

- Each reference starts with a newline. This also means that every RIS file starts with an empty line.

- There can be only one tag per line.

- The tag must be at the very beginning of the line.

- The tags consist of two capital letters denoting the type, followed by two spaces, a dash, and another space.

- The first tag of each reference is the Type tag (TY - )

- The last tag of each reference is the End tag (ER - )

- The sequence of all other elements is arbitrary.

  ### Note

  There is one exception: In the case of multiple authors, editors, or series editors, the sequence of these authors is significant. E.g. the first AU tag will be used as the first author, the last one as the last author.

Therefore a minimal RIS file may look like this:

    TY  - BOOK
    AU  - Hoenicka,M.
    TI  - The refdb manual
    PY  - 2001
    ER  -

| This is the empty line generated by a linefeed character (0x0A) that precedes every RIS citation, even at the start of a RIS file.
| This is the mandatory first tag, the type specifier. In this case, we're looking at a BOOK entry.
| This and the following lines are the contents proper of the citation. All additional tags would go here as well
| This is the mandatory last tag which closes the citation. Although invisible here, this tag also has a trailing space like all others.

### Character encodings

The RIS specification has no built-in means to specify the character encoding of the data. Commercial applications usually expect the data to be supplied in a particular encoding (e.g. Reference Manager uses the Windows ANSI character set). refdb does not have this limitation, you are free to use any encoding available on your platform (except UTF-16 and UTF-32). However, you should be aware that this may cause an interchange issue if you plan to use these data in a commercial reference management program. In any case, as the datasets do not specify their encoding, you have to use `-E` option of the getref command if your input data use an encoding different from the default (UTF-8).

### RIS tags

The following list shows all available tags and their use.

### Note

Please keep in mind that a full tag consists of the letters mentioned below followed by two spaces, a dash, and another space. E.g. the first tag below would be written as “`TY -` ” in a RIS file.

TY

  This tag specifies the type of the reference and must be the first tag of each RIS dataset, preceeded by a newline.

  Format: This can be any of the following strings:

  - ABST (abstract reference)

  - ADVS (audiovisual material)

  - ART (art work)

  - BILL (bill/resolution)

  - BOOK (whole book reference)

  - CASE (case)

  - CHAP (book chapter reference)

  - COMP (computer program)

  - CONF (conference proceeding)

  - CTLG (catalog)

  - DATA (data file)

  - ELEC (electronic citation)

  - GEN (generic)

  - HEAR (hearing)

  - ICOMM (internet communication)

  - INPR (in press reference)

  - JFULL (journal/periodical - full)

  - JOUR (journal/periodical reference)

  - MAP (map)

  - MGZN (magazine article)

  - MPCT (motion picture)

  - MUSIC (music score)

  - NEWS (newspaper)

  - PAMP (pamphlet)

  - PAT (patent)

  - PCOMM (personal communication)

  - RPRT (report)

  - SER (serial - book, monograph)

  - SLIDE (slide)

  - SOUND (sound recording)

  - STAT (statute)

  - THES (thesis/dissertation)

  - UNBILL (unenacted bill/resolution)

  - UNPB (unpublished work reference)

  - VIDEO (video recording)

ER

  This empty tag denotes the end of the reference. It must be the last tag of each RIS dataset.

ID

  This tag is used to uniquely identify the reference in the database. The value is either the unique ID that refdb generates when a reference is imported into a database, or a unique citation key. The latter can be supplied by the user. If no citation key is specified when adding a reference, refdb will automatically generate a unique citation key, based on the name of the first author and the publication year. refdb will create an unique ID value for internal use regardless of whether a citation key is provided or not.

  ### Note

  ID values are always numerical (e.g. "11"), whereas citation keys are alphanumerical (e.g. "Miller1999").

  While you are free to choose any reasonable citation key (as long as it is unique within the database), you should not attempt to create a ID value manually. It is ignored when adding the dataset, but it may overwrite an existing entry if you update a reference. Along the same line, you should leave the ID tag alone if you retrieve a dataset from the database and plan to update it. The citation key in the retrieved data set is essential to match the modified data with the copy in the database.

  ID Format: Integer >0.

  Citation key Format: A string with up to 255 characters. You should use 7-bit ASCII characters only to avoid character encoding issues. If you want to work with SGML documents, the citation keys should be all uppercase.

TI

  This is the title of a publication. For BOOK and UNPB references this is the same as the BT tag.

  Format: A string with unlimited length.

T2

  This is the secondary title of a publication, e.g. the book title for a CHAP reference.

  Format: A string with unlimited length.

T3

  This is the tertiary title of a publication, e.g. the series title for a CHAP reference.

  Format: A string with unlimited length.

AU

  Synonym: A1. This is the name of one author of the reference. If a reference has multiple authors, each author is specified with an AU tag on a separate line. The number of authors per RIS dataset is not limited. The sequence of the authors in the authorlist will be determined from the sequence as they appear in the RIS dataset.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters in the form: Lastname[,(F.|First)[(M.|Middle)...][,Suffix]]. First and middle names can either be abbreviated or spelled out. Use periods to separate initials, and spaces to separate spelled-out first or middle names. Lastname can be a corporate name. Some examples for valid entries:

  - King,B.B.

  - Benberg,Steven C.

  - Mellencamp,John Cougar,Jr.

  - Van Zandt,Steven

A2

  Synonym: ED. This is the name of an editor of the reference, e.g. an editor of the book in which a CHAP reference was published. The same formatting requirements as for AU apply.

A3

  This is the name of a series editor of the reference, e.g. an editor of a series of books in one of which a CHAP reference was published. The same formatting requirements as for AU apply.

PY

  Synonym: Y1. This is the primary publication date.

  Format: A string with the format “YYYY/MM/DD/otherinfo”, where YYYY denotes the four-digit year, MM and DD denote the two-digit month and day, respectively, and otherinfo denotes any other information with up to 255 characters. If any of these parts is not available, it can be left out, but the slashes must be present. E.g. “1999///Christmas edition” is a valid string.

Y2

  This is the secondary publication date.

  Format: A string with the format “YYYY/MM/DD/otherinfo”, where YYYY denotes the four-digit year, MM and DD denote the two-digit month and day, respectively, and otherinfo denotes any other information with up to 255 characters. If any of these parts is not available, it can be left out, but the slashes must be present. E.g. “1999///Christmas edition” is a valid string.

N1

  The notes. This can be any form of additional information, like pointers to corrections or editorials, or just personal notes about the contents of the reference.

  Format: A string with unlimited length

N2

  Synonym: AB. The abstract of a reference.

  Format: A string with unlimited length

KW

  A keyword. If a publication has multiple keywords, each goes on a separate line preceeded with this tag. Keywords are crucial to find references in larger databases.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

RP

  The reprint status of a reference. This can be any of the following strings:

  - IN FILE

  - NOT IN FILE

  - ON REQUEST MM/DD/YY

AV

  The availability information. This is a hint where you can find an offprint or a file containing the reference.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters. This can either be a plain-text description like "methods folder, second drawer from top in the green cabinet on the yellow hallway", or an URL pointing to a file. In the latter case, this field has to start with the string "PATH:" with no space between this and the path proper. Using this feature requires some thought and is therefore explained in a separate section.

SP

  The start page of the reference

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

EP

  The end page of the reference

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

JO

  The abbreviated name of a journal or periodical.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters. The components should be separated by a single space without a period after abbreviated words. If you use periods, these should not be followed by spaces.

JF

  The full name of a journal or periodical.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

J1

  The abbreviated name of a journal or periodical (user abbreviation 1).

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

J2

  The abbreviated name of a journal or periodical (user abbreviation 2).

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

VL

  The volume of the journal/periodical.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

IS

  The issue of the journal/periodical

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

CY

  City of publication of a book.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

PB

  Name of the publisher or the publishing company.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

SN

  The ISBN or ISSN number.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

AD

  The contact address, usually the any combination of postal or email address and the phone or fax number of the corresponding author.

  Format: A string of unlimited length

UR

  The URL of an online version of the reference.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

U1 through U5

  The user-defined fields 1 through 5. These fields are not intended to be filled with random bits of information. Each database should have a set of rules what information is to be stored in these fields.

  A possible use for these fields is some relevance indicator (e.g. “#” means low, “#####” means high relevance).

  You may also use one of these fields to create the equivalents of “folders” that some other reference databases praise as the panacea to organize your references. Just assign the same value to one of these fields for all references that belong to the same folder. Retrieve them by specifying this value in addition to your other search criteria.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

M1 through M3

  The miscellaneous fields 1 through 3. These fields are used by various reference types to deal with additional information that doesn't fit anywhere else. M1 is a good place for type or genre information, whereas M3 is suitable to hold the medium.

  Format: A string with up to 255 characters

### Examples

The following listing shows a few examples of valid RIS datasets. See also the example RIS file in the `/usr/local/share/refdb/examples` directory.

### Note

Long entries like abstracts were divided into several lines using slashes. This is to make it more human-readable for this manual and should not be used in real data.

    TY  - JOUR
    T1  - T-lymphocytes from normal human peritoneum are phenotypically /
    different from their counterparts in peripheral blood and CD3- lymphocyte /
    subsets contain mRNA for the recombination activating gene RAG-1
    A1  - Hartmann,J.
    A1  - Maassen,V.
    A1  - Rieber,P.
    A1  - Fricke,H.
    Y1  - 1995///
    KW  - Peritoneum
    KW  - T cell
    KW  - T lymphocyte
    KW  - lymphocyte
    KW  - immunology
    KW  - CD3
    KW  - human
    KW  - Adult
    KW  - blood
    RP  - IN FILE
    SP  - 2626
    EP  - 2631
    JF  - European Journal of Immunology
    JA  - Eur.J.Immunol.
    VL  - 25
    N2  - These findings are compatible with the hypothesis that the adult /
    human peritoneum provides a microenvirinment capable of supporting a /
    thymus-independent differentiation of T lymphocytes.
    ER  -

    TY  - BOOK
    T1  - Porphyrins and metalloporphyrins
    A1  - Smith,K.M.
    Y1  - 1975///
    KW  - Porphyrins
    KW  - Metalloporphyrins
    KW  - Spectrophotometry [methods]
    KW  - spectroscopy
    RP  - NOT IN FILE
    CY  - Amsterdam
    PB  - Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company
    ER  -

    TY  - CHAP
    T1  - Physiological studies of the natriuretic peptide family
    A1  - Lewicki,J.A.
    A1  - Protter,A.A.
    Y1  - 1995///
    N1  - Atrial Natriuretic Peptide   Cardiac synthesis and secretion of /
    ANP   Regulation of ANP Gene Expression   Regulation of ANP Release /
    ANP Receptors   Biologic Actions of ANP Brain Natriuretic Peptide (BNP) /
    BNP Structure   Biosynthesis of BNP   Biological Actions of BNP C-Type /
    Natriuretic Peptide (CNP)   Biologic Actions of CNP Modulators of /
    Natriuretic Peptide Clearance   Effects of Clearance Receptor Blockers /
    Effects of Neutral Endopeptidase Inhibitors Role of the Natriuretic /
    Peitedes in Physiology and Disease   Hypertension   Congestive Heart  /
    Failure   Supraventricular Tachyarrhythmias   Acute Renal Dysfunction
    KW  - natriuretic
    KW  - ANF
    KW  - ANP
    KW  - receptors
    KW  - BNP
    KW  - CNP
    KW  - hypertension
    KW  - congestive heart failure
    KW  - review
    KW  - cardiac
    KW  - regulation
    KW  - gene expression
    KW  - expression
    KW  - brain
    KW  - structure
    KW  - biosynthesis
    KW  - receptor
    KW  - inhibitor
    KW  - physiology
    KW  - renal
    KW  - study
    KW  - Peptides
    KW  - atrial natriuretic peptide
    KW  - MODULATOR
    KW  - secretion
    KW  - Gene Expression Regulation
    RP  - IN FILE
    SP  - 1029
    EP  - 1053
    VL  - 2
    T2  - Hypertension: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, and Management
    A2  - Laragh,J.H.
    A2  - Brenner,B.M.
    IS  - 61
    CY  - New York
    PB  - Raven Press, Ltd.
    ER  -

Prev | Up | Next
Common command-line options for all clients | Home | The Emacs RIS mode