[227] in Athena Bugs
scribe inbook form on 1apa references
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joe Harrington)
Tue Apr 19 04:52:53 1988
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 88 04:51:53 AST
From: Joe Harrington <jh@SOL.MIT.EDU>
To: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Cc: jh@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: jh@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
ALWAYS produces an error. THere was a long olc question about this,
and several scribe hackers looked at it. None could figure it out.
here goes...
Log initiated for user (hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU)
(88/04/18 16:35:53)
Topic: scribe
Question:
When my bibliography file goes through Scribe, I get the following message:
The characters "@~@imbed(Series" are invalid here and are
being ignored. Probable cause: msising close-delimiter
earlier in the file.
This error occurs on both of my @inbook entries. I really don't think I
have any missing (oops, I misspelled it above) close-delimiters earlier
in the file, especially as the first error occurs in line 1. What else
would cause it?
--- 88/04/18 16:35:56 Connected to volunteer Jonathan I. Kamens (jik@M1-142-8.MI
T.EDU)
--- 88/04/18 16:37:51 Message from volunteer jik@M1-142-8.MIT.EDU:
It's possible that you have strings somewhere in the file within close
delimiters that are too long for scribe to handle. To fix it, try putting
@Style(stringmax 10000)
at the top of your file. This will tell scribe to accept longer strings within
delimiters.
--- 88/04/18 16:42:40 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
No, that wasn't it. I still get the same errors.
--- 88/04/18 16:44:42 Message from volunteer jik@M1-142-8.MIT.EDU:
I don't really know. I am going to forward you and hope that someone who knows
more about bibliographies is around to answer your question.
Good luck!
--- 88/04/18 16:44:48 Question forwarded by jik
--- 88/04/18 17:26:52 Connected to volunteer John F Carr (jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU)
--- 88/04/18 17:28:44 Message from volunteer jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU:
Could you send me the part of the file which casues the problem?
(Use cut-and-paste from an Xterm window).
--- 88/04/18 17:32:59 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
Okay. Here goes:
@inbook(sperling, key="Sperling",
author="Sperling, David",
title="Israel's Religion in the Ancient Near East",
pages="5-31",
booktitle="Jewish Spirituality: From the Bible through the Middle Ages",
editor="Green, Arthur",
publisher="Crossroad: New York",
year="1986")
--- 88/04/18 17:35:13 Message from volunteer jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU:
What are the setup commands you use (i.e. @Make(), @Style())?
--- 88/04/18 17:36:30 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
@make(report)
@device(postscript)
@style(references=1APA,font=timesroman, size=12, spacing=2, stringmax 10000)
--- 88/04/18 17:42:02 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
I'm not even sure I'm using the @inbook command correctly. I
can't find any Scribe manual in this cluster.
--- 88/04/18 17:47:46 Message from volunteer jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU:
I'm looking through the database now...you sem to be using the command
correctly. Scribe expands @inbook as a macro, producing the line you
originally sent. For some reason, it thinks there is something wrong.
How much text is there between the beginning of the document and the
first @inbook? If it is not much, send it to me.
The scribe manual in 66 may be loose: one of the document racks was broken.
Look for a single volume lying around if it's not in a rack.
--- 88/04/18 17:49:31 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
The entry I sent you was at the beginning of a file, paper.bib.
It is accessed when I scribe paper.mss, which I don't think has
any errors. That file is much too long to be worth looking at.
--- 88/04/18 17:51:15 Message from volunteer jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU:
Is paper.bib called by @include?
Can you try running without a bibliography, to see if it works that way?
--- 88/04/18 17:54:24 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
I got no errors. Specifically, what I did was get rid of all
citations (by temporarily changing them to comments) and renaming
the bibliography file.
--- 88/04/18 18:00:10 Message from volunteer jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU:
I may have found the problem: try changing the apostrophe ("'") in
"Israel's" to some other character (make it a period ".", that should
be harmless). I know you will need to print a "'" eventually, but I
first want to check if it is the error.
Scribe uses "'" for quotes, and so may be cofused if it is used in
another way.
--- 88/04/18 18:01:52 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
Ah! I bet you got it. Okay, I'll try it.
I'll probably be able to eventually printit by doing
something like @' .
--- 88/04/18 18:05:09 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
No, that didn't do it. I thought it would have. Here are the errors:
Error in INBOOK command found while digesting bibliography data.
paper.bib, line 34:
The characters "@~@imbed(Series" are invalid here and are being ignored.
Probable cause: missing close-delimiter earlier in the file.
Error in INBOOK command.
paper.bib, line 1:
The characters "@~@imbed(Series" are invalid here and are being ignored.
Probable cause: missing close-delimiter earlier in the file.
--- 88/04/18 18:11:45 Message from volunteer jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU:
I don't know what the problem is.
I'll forward your question for someone who knows more than I.
--- 88/04/18 18:12:22 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
This information might be useful, to determine where something is going
wrong. This is the reference exactly as it appears in the printed bib'y:
Sperling, David. Israel's Religion in the Ancient Near East. In Green,
Arthur (Ed.), Jewish Sprituatlity: From the Bible through the Middle
Ages.], undef [ Green, Arthur (Ed.). Sperling, David.Israel's Religion
in the Ancient Near East.])Crossroad: New York, 1986.
Maybe I should have a bibliographic entry for the whole book. If I do
that, how do I point the inbook refernce to it? Does it match by title
or do I have to communicate the key?
--- 88/04/18 18:12:42 Comment by volunteer jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU:
Def'n of InBook is in /usr/.../database/1apare.lib
--- 88/04/18 18:15:14 Message from volunteer jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU:
That is useful...I'll keep looking.
--- 88/04/18 18:20:58 Message from volunteer jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU:
Is there a space between the '.' and ']' after "Middle Ages"?
(The problem looks like a missing close-delimiter or a long string.
A space there would confirm this.)
One problem may be that the stringlength definition in the .bib file
may not be the same as in the .mss file.
Try putting @Style(stringlength 5000) at the top of the .bib file.
--- 88/04/18 18:21:57 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
Can't do that. Bibliography files can't have style commands.
And yes, there is a space between the . and ]
--- 88/04/18 18:23:27 Message from volunteer jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU:
1. Check to see if there are any other scribe quote characters in
the strings, especially at the end of booktitle.
2. What are the differences between those InBook forms and others
you use?
--- 88/04/18 18:27:21 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
I created a bogus paper that used the same bibliography, and the same errors
occured, so the problem must be with the bibliography.
--- 88/04/18 18:31:32 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
The InBook's have more fields. Can you check in a manual if I'm using the
right field names? Here is the reference again:
@inbook(sperling, key="Sperling",
author="Sperling, David",
title="Israel's Religion in the Ancient Near East",
pages="5-31",
publisher="Crossroad: New York",
year="1986",
booktitle="Jewish Spirituality: From the Bible through the Middle Ages")
--- 88/04/18 18:36:46 Message from volunteer jfc@M4-035-14.MIT.EDU:
I'm not sure what is wrong. You may want to come over to bldg 4; there
is a manual here and I can help you in person.
(The field names seem right.)
--- 88/04/18 18:44:29 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
No, thanks. I found a manual here. I guess you can just let another
consultant handle it. Thanks for all your help anyway.
--- 88/04/18 18:44:45 Question forwarded by jfc
--- 88/04/18 18:45:58 Connected to consultant John E Elsbree (elsj@M11-115-4.MIT
.EDU)
--- 88/04/18 18:53:38 Message from consultant elsj@M11-115-4.MIT.EDU:
Well, I just read through the entire conversation thus far. I can't tell
what is wrong from what I've seen. Please do these two things for me:
1) Change the protection of the file so that I can read it. Do this
by typing the following command:
chmod a+r filename.bib
2) Send me the name of the file.
I'll look at it directly and see if I can spot anything.
--- 88/04/18 18:55:18 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
OK. Done. I've made readable "paper.bib" and "paper.mss".
They are located in /mit/hacrat/Ellen. (I am Ellen, not hacrat;
my file server is down, so I'm on a friend's account.)
--- 88/04/18 19:00:40 Message from consultant elsj@M11-115-4.MIT.EDU:
By the way, I've found that Scribe doesn't deal too well with line numbers
in bibliographies, so the reference to "line 1" is probably incorrect.
--- 88/04/18 19:57:32 Message from consultant elsj@M11-115-4.MIT.EDU:
Well, I'm still wrestling with the problem, but not getting anywhere.
--- 88/04/18 19:58:22 Message from user hacrat@M66-080-16.MIT.EDU:
OK. I really appreciate it. I'll be logging off soon.
--- 88/04/18 20:03:14 Message from consultant elsj@M11-115-4.MIT.EDU:
I'll keep your question active in OLC, in case someone else figures it out.
If we do figure it out, you'll receive mail.
--- 88/04/18 20:28:00 Comment by consultant elsj@M11-115-4.MIT.EDU:
As near as I can tell, there is some bug in /usr/athena/lib/scribe/database/
1apare.lib ...I think it's on lines 148-149: I don't think they can use the
square brackets [ ] for @imbed[Editor ...], because it's within another string
that's delimited by [ ]. They seem to have used up all the available delimiters
Anyone know how to force scribe to use a copy of 1apare.lib in the local
directory, rather than the one in the database? I've been trying to edit a
local copy of it, but can't convince Scribe to use it.
--- 88/04/18 20:28:02 Question forwarded by elsj
--- 88/04/18 20:28:07 User has logged out.
--- 88/04/18 20:28:10 Connected to volunteer Ilhamuddin Ahmed (ilham@M66-080-3.M
IT.EDU)
--- 88/04/18 20:28:15 User has logged out.
--- 88/04/18 20:28:46 Question forwarded by ilham
--- 88/04/18 20:28:48 User has logged out.
--- 88/04/18 20:28:50 User has logged out.
--- 88/04/19 01:48:32 User has logged out.
--- 88/04/19 01:48:35 Question grabbed by volunteer jh.
--- 88/04/19 01:48:35 Connected to volunteer Joseph Harrington (jh@VENUS.MIT.EDU
)
--- 88/04/19 03:40:41 To: hacrat@athena.mit.edu
Subject: Your OLC question about scribe
Unseen messages:
time: 88/04/18 20:03:14
I'll keep your question active in OLC, in case someone else figures it out.
If we do figure it out, you'll receive mail.
(from jh) I've been editing the 1apa reference format all day, The
problem occurs with all inbook entries in the 1apa reference format.
I don't know if it happens in other reference formats. It is not due
to any other part of the .lib file, nor to your .bib file format. I
made my own copy of the reference format and deleted everything but
the bare essentials and the inbook entry. I even deleted the
comments. My document consisted of your bib entry pared down to the
minimum required entries and one word per entry. The error persisted.
As far as I can tell, the .lib file's entry looks good, so this one
may have to go up to athena bugs and maybe even on to the scribe
people. Elsj's assessment about the number of delimiters may be
valid.
I suggest you try to find either another reference format, or another
type of entry (look at incollection or book).
If you really insist on using the 1apa format, I have modified the
inbook entry to do whay you need, though not much more. To use this,
copy jhfix.lib and jhfix.ref from ~jh/consult (attach jh first), and
put them into the same directory as the file you're editing. Set your
bibliography formay to "jhfix". See examples in ~jh/consult.
--jh--
