.TH BIB-GEN 1 "June 2026" "bibutils" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
bib-gen \- generate a bibtex entry
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B bib-gen
.RB [ \-t
.IR type ]
.RI [ field = value " ...]"
.br
.B bib-gen
.RB [ \-t
.IR type ]
.B \-F
.IR field , field ,...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B bib-gen
builds bibtex entries and emits them on standard output, with citation
keys generated as by
.BR bib-key (1).
It runs in one of three modes:
.TP
.B interactive
With no field arguments and no
.BR \-F ,
the user is prompted for the entry type and then for each field
appropriate to that type.
Fields left empty are omitted.
.TP
.B argument
Each
.IR field = value
argument supplies one field of a single entry.
.TP
.B batch
With
.BR \-F ,
one entry is generated per line of standard input.
Lines are split on tabs, with columns assigned to the listed fields
in order.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.BI \-t " type"
The bibtex entry type (default
.BR article ).
.TP
.BI \-F " field,field,..."
Enable batch mode with the given column-to-field mapping.
.SH EXIT STATUS
0 on success, 1 if no fields were supplied, 2 on usage error.
.SH EXAMPLES
.nf
bib-gen -t book author='D. E. Knuth' title='The TeXbook' \\
    publisher='Addison-Wesley' year=1984 | bib-add refs.bib

printf 'A. Author\\tSome Title\\tSome Journal\\t1999\\n' |
    bib-gen -F author,title,journal,year
.fi
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR bib-add (1),
.BR bib-key (1),
.BR bib-util (1)