Re: Select and insert multiple bibliography entries into one \cite command with regexp search.

[Hongyi Zhao]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 5:48 PM Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
> To conclude:
>
> 1. If you use helm-bibtex, the following example works smoothly:
>
> ---
> \documentclass{article}
> \usepackage{natbib}
>
> \begin{document}
>
> \begin{verbatim}
>  (insert "\n" (format "%S" (symbol-value reftex-docstruct-symbol)))
> \end{verbatim}
>
> \cite{weiFirstprinciplesCharacterizationBibased2009}
>
> \bibliographystyle{plainnat}
> \bibliography{\string~/Documents/bibliograph/better-bibtex/references-bibtex.bib}
>
> \end{document}
>
> %%% Local Variables:
> %%% mode: latex
> %%% TeX-master: t
> %%% End:
> ---
>
> But the following error will be triggered when using RefTeX to insert
> the references:
>
> reftex-offer-bib-menu: No valid bibliography in this document, and no
> default available

Sorry for my error description on the bibliography search mechanism of
helm-bibtex. According to the comment here [1]:

----------------
Search in the local bibliography

Use helm-bibtex-with-local-bibliography or
ivy-bibtex-with-local-bibliography to start a search in the current
buffer’s “local bibliography”, instead of the “global bibliography”
defined by bibtex-completion-bibliography. If the current file is a
BibTeX file, that bibliography is going to be used. If the current
file is a LaTeX file, reftex will be used to determine the local
bibliography from the standard LaTeX bibliography commands
\bibliography and \addbibresource. If the file is an org file, the
local and/or global org bibliography is used (as specified using the
new #+BIBLIOGRAPHY: key word and the variable
org-cite-global-bibliography). If no local bibliography can be found,
the global bibliography (bibtex-completion-bibliography) will be used.
----------------

So helm-bibtex can use the “local bibliography” or the “global
bibliography” defined by bibtex-completion-bibliography. The former is
implemanted based on RefTeX, the latter relies on the customized
variable bibtex-completion-bibliography. In my testings, I already
difined the variable bibtex-completion-bibliography, so if no local
bibliography can be found, the global bibliography
(bibtex-completion-bibliography) will be used.

To summarize: if RefTeX can't find the bibliography file, helm-bibtex
won't find it too; but as a fallback mechanism, it can query the
global bibliography (bibtex-completion-bibliography) if avaiable,
which is just the situation in my testings.

[1] https://github.com/tmalsburg/helm-bibtex#search-in-the-local-bibliography

Best, Hongyi