man7.org > Linux > man-pages

Linux/UNIX system programming training

lkbib(1) — Linux manual page

Name | Synopsis | Description | Options | Exit status | Environment | Files | See also | COLOPHON 

lkbib(1)                 General Commands Manual                 lkbib(1)

Name         top

       lkbib - search bibliographic databases

Synopsis         top

       lkbib [-n] [-i fields] [-p file] ... [-t n] key ...

       lkbib --help

       lkbib -v

       lkbib --version

Description         top

       lkbib searches bibliographic databases for references matching all
       keywords key and writes any references found to the standard
       output stream.  It reads databases given by -p options and then
       (unless -n is given) a default database.  The default database is
       taken from the REFER environment variable if it is set, otherwise
       it is /usr/dict/papers/Ind.  For each database file to be
       searched, if an index file.i created by indxbib(1) exists, then it
       will be searched instead; each index can cover multiple databases.

Options         top

       --help displays a usage message, while -v and --version show
       version information; all exit afterward.

       -i string
              When searching files for which no index exists, ignore the
              contents of fields whose names are in string.

       -n     Suppress search of default database.

       -p file
              Search file.  Multiple -p options can be used.

       -t n   Require only the first n characters of keys to be given.
              The default is 6.

Exit status         top

       lkbib exits with status 0 on successful operation, status 2 if the
       program cannot interpret its command-line arguments, and status 1
       if it encounters an error during operation.

Environment         top

       REFER  Assign this variable a file name to override the default
              database.

Files         top

       /usr/dict/papers/Ind
              Default database to be used if the REFER environment
              variable is not set.

       file.i Index files.

See also         top

       “Some Applications of Inverted Indexes on the Unix System”, by M.
       E. Lesk, 1978, AT&T Bell Laboratories Computing Science Technical
       Report No. 69.

       refer(1), lookbib(1), indxbib(1)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the groff (GNU troff) project.  Information
       about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩.  If you have a bug report for
       this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/groff.git⟩ on 2025-08-11.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2025-08-09.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

groff 1.23.0.2722-658f-dirty    2025-01-02                       lkbib(1)

HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface.

For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here.

Hosting by jambit GmbH.

Cover of TLPI