Revision history for Biber
2.19 (2023-03)
* Misc bug fixes
2.18 (2022-06)
* Added support for biblatex "pluralothers" option which allows "et
al" to be forced to replace more than one name.
* Universal x86_64/ARM64 binary
* Support for citation-only rules for name templates in sorting (see
\visibility macro in sorting name key templates in biblatex)
2.17 (2022-01)
* Tool mode now supports tab indentation in output as well as spaces
(see --output-indent)
* More compact match/replace syntax for serial items in data maps
* Native ARM64 binary for OSX now provided
2.16 (2020-12)
* Better support for Unicode on Windows (10 1803+) with the
--winunicode option
* Option "output_macro_fields" no longer does anything as macro
fields are auto-detected.
* New options "output_no_macrodefs" and "output_all_macrodefs" control
BibTeX macros (@STRING) output for bibtex format output.
2.15 (2020-08)
* Added --output-legacy-dates and --output-field-replace options to
aid in outputting legacy bibtex format in tool and non-tool mode
* UTF-8 filenames supported on Windows
* INCOMPATIBLE CHANGE - datasource globbing now has to be turned on
explicitly with the --glob-datasources option. Globbing causes
some issues with UTF8 encoding detection on some OSes and since it
is a niche requirement, it is turned off by default.
* DEPRECATION WARNING - The BBLXML output format will be removed in
version 4. It is rarely used and complicates test suite maintenance
considerably.
2.14 (2019-12)
* XDATA now supports granular references so that specific
fields/items in a list field may be used and inserted into
fields/list positions. This allow, for example, re-use of names
from a general XDATA entry containing data about authors. See the
biblatex documentation.
* Remote Zotero data source requests now send correct header
* Annotations are now correctly output for related entries
* Better sorting of some name edge cases
* New map_entrykey_* mapping verbs
* New options --noremove-tmp-dir and --show-tmp-dir to disable of
removal on exit and showing location of temporary directory used for
intermediate data. Useful for debugging.
* Tool mode now accepts multiple data files on the command-line so
that data can be spread over several files (e.g. main bib and
crossrefs can be kept in separate files)
* Biber no longer uses Text::BibTeX/btparse to generation initials
from names in normal name parsing mode because it can't handle
some Unicode situations.
2.13 (2019-08-13)
* biber now exits with error on some very malformed names instead of
skipping them as this can lead to data loss in bibliographies.
* Support for named annotations
2.12 (2018-10-30)
* Added support for biblatex literal and named annotation features
* Added support for biblatex \ifnocite test
* Case insensitive matching operators in sourcemaps (matchi/notmatchi)
* Support for biblatex min/maxsortnames options
* Added support for biblatex 'noroman' option to supporess roman
numeral interpretation in ranges.
* Misc bug fixes
2.11 (2018-02-14)
* New entrynocite option for maps which create/clone entries
* Misc bug fixes
2.10 (2017-12-19)
* Misc bug fixes
2.9 (2017-11-04)
* Misc bug fixes
2.8 (2017-11-04)
* Updated copyright dates
* Support for many new biblatex 3.8 features (see bibatex change doc
and PDF manual).
* --output-resolve option is now a meta-alias for the more granular
--output-resolve-* options - see the biber -? output
* The --nouri-encode option is removed. All urls are URL encoded and
a new field urlraw is always output with an unencoded version.
2.7 (2016-12-08)
* New option (--nouri-encode) to prevent URL encoding of URLs. Avoids breaking
display of URLS which contain non-ASCII.
* Misc bug fixes
2.6 (2016-09-10)
* Improved tool mode bibtex output. This has some normalisation
consequences for YEAR and custom fields. See PDF doc.
* Support for new \ifuniquebaretitle test
* Sourcemaps can now be restricted to particular refsections
* Perl 5.24 is now required due to use of postfix deref notation
* Removed RIS input driver due to lack of use
* Added extended name format - see documentation
* Added notfield function to sourcemaps - see documentation
2.5 (2016-05-10)
* Added data annotations feature - see biblatex documentation.
* Removed the "latinkeys.txt" Unicode::Collate table. This is now
pointless because the compiled 'allkeys.txt' is faster and complete.
* Incompatible biblatex/biber version is now a fatal error.
* Significant performance improvements, particularly in sorting subsystem.
* Addition of new bblXML output format and associated RelaxNG XML
schema based on active datamodel.
* Integration with new biblatex 3.4 labelprefix name change and
refcontext option.
* Integration with new biblatex 3.4 \DeclareDatafieldSet
functionality.
* Improved sourcemap looping functionality
2.4 (2016-03-01)
* Misc bug fixes
* There is now a 64-bit windows build built on windows 10
* Biblatexml datasources now support sourcemapping and have a schema
automatically generated from the datamodel. See new biber options
'validate-bltxml' and 'no-bltxml-schema' in --help output.
* New functionality in sourcemaps for creating new entries and
looping over specified fields.
* Sorting key used to sort names is now customisable. See
\DeclareSortingNamekeyScheme in biblatex manual.
* Support for Zotero RDF/XML and Endnote removed. These were
experimental and messy.
2.3 (2015-12-28)
* Misc bug fixes
2.2 (2015-10-21)
* Tool mode now preserves comments at the end of the file
* New ISBN formatting options for biber (--isbn10, --isnb13, --isbn-normalise)
* Implemented way of ignoring certain regexps when counting
fixed-width string in labels (see biblatex \DeclareNolabelwidthcount macro)
* Updated binary builds to perl 5.22
* Cygwin binary build is now handled by Texlive builders
* Misc bug fixes
2.1 (2015-05-06)
* Misc bug fixes
2.0 (2015-04-20)
* Misc bug fixes
* New negated "per type" sourcemap verb for negating the application
of maps to specific entry types
* New "entry clone" sourcemap verb for cloning entries during
sourcemapping. See PDF documentation for biber.
* Added range length calculation support. Biber now calculates the length of
ranges for biblatex and can handle roman numerals, including just
about any UTF-8 composed, non-composed or compat versions
* Complete re-write of the biblatex use* name functionality now
automatically supports all name fields defined in the data model. See
biblatex manual
* Moved labelname and labeltitle resolution from biber to biblatex for more
flexibility and future extensions
* Moved to perl 5.20 for all internals and builds
1.9 (2014-05-25)
* Misc bug fixes
* Option names accept dashes as well as underscores for general TeX
option compatibility.
* New "--input-directory" option
* Tool mode now also supports data validation
* Perl 5.18 is now used to build all biber binaries
* Locale-sensitive sorting now more granular (see biblatex
"sortlocale" documentation)
* Source mapping feature now interpolates from previous matches
* Now supports generalised separated values lists using new
"--xsvsep" option.
* Macro <-> UTF-8 conversion now more robust
* New Text::BibTeX library now supports generating initials from
general UTF-8 strings (for, e.g. Russian names)
1.8 (2013-10-21)
* Perl 5.18 compatibility (hash order randomisation)
* Removed Data::Diver module due to linux licensing restrictions
* Misc Bug Fixes
1.7 (2013-07-07)
* Added clrmacros option
* Added map_nomatch
* Added --tool_macro_fields option
* Exposed sorting option to user-level config file (so sorting in tool mode is possible)
1.6 (2013-04-30)
* Bugfixes
* Now uses perl 5.16. Non-binary (unpacked) use requires perl 5.16+
* Improved tool mode with some formatting options
* Made Unicode NFD/NFC boundaries more robust
* labelyear is now labeldate to match biblatex 2.6
* Support for new CLONESOURCEKEY field (see biblatex 2.6 docs)
* New padding character option in labelalphatemplate (see biblatex
2.6 docs)
1.5 (2013-01-10)
* Added new source mapping option "map_entry_null"
* Renamed some options (old ones remain as aliases):
bibencoding -> input_encoding
bblencoding -> output_encoding
bblsafechars -> output_safechars
bblsafecharsset -> output_safecharsset
outfile -> output_file
outformat -> output_format
* New "tool" mode with "--tool" option which takes a data source as argument
and just performs reencoding and source mappings etc. as per options and config file.
* Support for customisable BibTeX data source list and name separators
* Better debug output for source mapping
* Better defined source mapping hierarchy with bugfixes
1.4 (2012-11-28)
* Support for biblatex 2.4 style sourcemaps (See \DeclareStyleSourcemap in biblatex docs)
* entrykey is now a possible read-only pseudo field in sourcemaps
* Reencode data interface completely re-written. New user option
--recodedata allows users to specify a new data file for defining
reencoding sets.
* Internal changes to allow multiple script/lang variants of
fields in biblatex in the future.
* Citation key aliases now supported more comprehensively, in crossrefs etc.
* Support for new RELATEDOPTIONS field (see biblatex docs)
* Misc bug fixes
1.3 (01-11-2012)
* New "append" mode for sourcemap to allow combining of fields
* map_final now possible for map_set_field steps which causes map to
stop completely if map_overwrite is false and the field to set
already exists
* Allow extrayear generation when there is no labelyear
1.2 (20-08-2012)
* Misc bug fixes
1.1 (01-08-2012)
* Misc bug fixes
* Fixed later CentOS libz issue by including latest libz for linux builds
* Fixed DOT output (SF bug 3544894)
1.0 (01-07-2012)
* Internal data model processing changes
* New labeltitleyear and extratitleyear disambiguation tracker
* New labeltitle and extratitle disambiguation tracker
* Sorting per list enabled for biblatex 2.0
* New noinit option for ignoring parts of names when generating initials
* Some optimisations for large data sources
* Fixed build issues which broke PAR::Packer binary under latest Debian (Wheezy)
0.9.9 (30-03-2012)
* Added sortfirstinits option
* HTTPS support for remote data sources
* Biber now ignores names when it can't determine minimal
information like a lastname. Before, it would throw lots of errors
and die.
* Strips UTF-8 BOMs before passing to Text::BibTeX otherwise it complains
* Merged --graph and --bltxml options into --outformat option
* Updated some internal Unicode 6.0 things
* Minor bug fixes
0.9.8 (20-12-2012)
* Changed config file sourcemap syntax and docs
* Support for citekey aliases
* New DOT output format
0.9.7 (27-11-2011)
* per-datasource mapping restrictions
* Completely new config file format to allow for extensions
* Fixed --help issue with PAR::Packer
* Fixed .bcf XSL inheritance attribute value issue
* Moved XDATA output skip into structure where it should have been originally
0.9.6 (13-11-2011)
* Fixed binary issue with Readonly::XS not being detected
* Fixed bug tracker ticket #3436870
* Match/replace functionality for data source field filtering
* New AUCTeX patches for better biblatex/biber support
* Now requires perl 5.14 for full Unicode 6.0 support
* New XDATA entrytype and field to allow more complex macro-style
data inheritance
* crossref cascading is in guaranteed resolve order now
* Warnings/error summary is now a more consistent format with all
other biber messages.
* Matching of .bcf keys to datasource keys is now case-sensitive
* Fixed biblatex bug tracker ticket #3399744
* Fixed bug tracker ticket #3402114
* max/minnames -> max/mincitenames
* max/min* now all per-type and per-entry
* uniquelist/uniquename now per-entry
* Re-factored recode module with XML data and XSL->HTML transform doc
0.9.5 (18-08-2011)
* Fixed auto-bblsafechars bug
* refactored explicit "and others" in bibtex data sources
* Fixed issue with sorting=none and \nocite{*}
0.9.4 (30-07-2011)
* Added support for "SORTSHORTHAND" field
* New "map" option to allow user field/entry type mapping (aliasing) in
addition to .dcf settings
* Made the relevant places depend on max/min{alpha,bib}names instead of
just max/minnames
* Bug fixes to bblsafechars
* Implemented user-customisable labelalpha (not yet in biblatex)
* Implemented per-name hashes
0.9.3 (05-06-2011)
* New mininit and minfull uniquename options
* New minyear uniquelist option
* Major revamp of uniqueness code
* Moved to new external process calling module because IPC::Run
doesn't work on Windows in packed binaries (kpsewhich was
returning nothing).
0.9.2 (09-05-2011)
* Some internal changes for perl 5.14
* Bug fixes for uniquelist processing
0.9.1 (29-04-2011)
* Made temp files all use a global temp dir.
* Moved temp .utf8 conversions to temp dir so biber works using
.bib files which are in non-writable locations.
* Added back an info log message about finding data sources (Lyx compat)
0.9 (29-03-2011)
* No longer auto-escapes any TeX markup in bibtex data sources. This
is fraught with danger and is a mess. Best not to do it at all.
* Supports biblatex \bibnamedelimi macro
* Implementation of uniquename and uniquelist options for biblatex 1.4+
0.8.4 (19-03-2011)
* Bug fixes (wrong escaping of "[", "_" and "]" in .bbl)
0.8.3 14-03-2011
* Biber now in TexLive
* Added several new binary builds
* All name part and element formatting is now abstracted into macros
so that it can be controlled via biblatex.
* Much more documentation on binary builds for packagers
* Bug fixes
0.8.2 (14-02-2011)
* Bug fixes
0.8.1 (12-02-2011)
* Small bug with default bibtex month macro support
* Made remote file support a little more robust (URI return codes)
0.8 (11-02-2011)
* Forces biblatex format for month field
* Added support for remote data sources
* Added experimental support for RIS data sources
* Took out -a and -d flags. These are no longer very useful as the increasingly
sophisticated biblatex options cannot be set on the command line
anyway and so these flags are less and less relevant
* New inheritance model in sync with biblatex defaults
* Bug fixes
0.7.4 (05-02-2011)
* Fix for mincrossrefs leaking across sections (biblatex SF bug #3173032)
0.7.3 (03-02-2011)
* Performance tuning for sorting
* Text::BibTeX 0.51 for increased macro stack space
* Support for old BibTeX month macros by default
* Re-write of datasource processing to allow for modular plugins
* Generalised nosort option.
* Merged LaTeX::Decode into Biber::LaTeX::Recode and added encoding
to deal with inputenc's limitations for PDFLaTeX users
* new options for forcing/tuning UTF-8 -> LaTeX macro conversion
* Bug fixes
0.7.2 (08-01-2011)
* Improved latexmk compatibility more
0.7.1 (07-01-2011)
* Improved latexmk compatibility
* Added "x-ascii" encoding alias for "ascii" to deal with inputenx ascii.
* Bug fixes
0.7 (05-01-2011)
* Completely re-written sorting routine using Schwartzian transform
for real multi-field support and per-field sorting settings.
* Bug fixes
0.6.9 (dev beta)
* Bug fixes
0.6.8 (dev beta)
* Generalised sorting behaviour in several respects
* Bug fixes
0.6.7 (dev beta)
* Bug fixes
0.6.6 (dev beta)
* More generalised sorting options
* Bug fixes
0.6.5 (dev beta)
* Bug fixes
0.6.4 (dev beta)
* Bug fixes
0.6.3 (dev beta)
* Outputs labelname name list to the .bbl
* Support for dynamic sets and simpler static set interface
* Misc bug fixes
0.6.2 (dev beta)
* Internal cleanup of structure code
* Misc bug fixes
0.6.1 (dev beta)
* More comprehensive structural checks on allowed entrytypes/fields
and field combinations/formats
* Added option validate_structure to turn on structural checks
* Renamed option validate -> validate_control
* Renamed option output-directory -> output_directory
* Added labelname and labelyear as possible sort specifications
* Misc bug fixes
0.6 (20-11-2010)
* First non-beta release
* More abstracted and extensible crossref inheritance model
* U::C dependency to 0.67
* sortcase and sortupper options now take same argument forms as in biblatex
* Misc bug fixes
0.5.7 (09-10-2010)
* Misc bug fixes
0.5.6 (04-10-2010)
* Latex character macro decoding is now better defined in the whole
(re)encoding workflow.
* "inputenc" option is now "bblencoding"
* "locale" option is now "sortlocale"
* New option "sortupper"
* Unicode::Collate sorting is now default as version 0.61 of this
has XS module and CLDR tailoring.
* Added binary dist build scripts
* Removed bundled Module::Build as there are some conflicts with
later versions. This is less of a problem anyway because the
binary build makes it less necessary to make builds easy on perl<5.10
* Misc bug fixes
0.5.5 (29-08-2010)
* Biber::BibTeX moved to Biber::Input::BibTeX. If upgrading, please remove
your installed <perl lib>/Biber/BibTeX.pm, just to be tidy
* New aliases for EPRINT classes and types implemented (see BibLaTeX docs).
* Biber now resolves XREFs as well as CROSSREFs so one less LaTeX pass is needed
* Allows UTF-8 citekeys. Requires Text::BibTeX >= 0.46 and a fully UTF-8
aware TeX macro package (e.g. XeTeX or LuaLaTeX). Normal LaTeX with \inputenc
will not work because the UTF-8 it uses is incomplete, macro based and not native.
* RecDescent parser is no longer supported or included. If upgrading, please remove
your installed <perl lib>/Biber/BibTeX directory, just to be tidy
* Now requires LaTeX::Decode >= 0.03
* Stricter version dependency for Text::BibTeX. Older than 0.42 is
rather useless for complex names.
* Re-factored and enhanced auto-re-encoding of .bib/.bbl. With biblatex
0.9c, Biber handles all reencoding.
* Misc bug fixes
0.5.4 (04-08-2010)
* Case-sensitive sorting option
* Multi-section support. Only one biber pass needed to process all
bib sections using extended biblatex 0.9b .bbl format.
* .aux file is no longer used by biber - all information is passed
in .bcf file.
* Misc bug fixes
* LaTeX::Decode is now a separate CPAN module and is no longer included
0.5.3 (19-03-2010)
* Changed semantics of --outfile and --output-directory. --outfile
is now relative to --output-directory. If --outfile is absolute, it
is stripped to the filename and the path discarded. Absolute .aux
paths are stripped to filename for appending to --output-directory.
* Updated PRD to use new encoding option names. Now works with -e.
* sortlos was not settable to use bib sort order
* With Text::BibTeX >= 0.42, will do all name/initials generation with btparse
library.
* Abstracted BBL output into Biber::Output class for better re-use and potential
for output formats other than .bbl.
* Synced uniquename .bcf values with change in biblatex 0.9a
0.5.2 (04-03-2010)
* Locale fixes
* Uniquename fixed to match BibLaTeX option values
* Improved error message for malformed names
* Fixed config file problems under windows and also added option to ignore config file
* Bug with conflicting case between citations and bib entries
* Moved pure perl parsename to PRD.pm
* Re-write of name parsing to use Text::BibTeX::Name by default
* Fields which can be null are explicitly flagged
* Add THANKS file
* Die early when biber is called without argument
* Fixed Mac config path error
* .bib parse continues after certain errors
* regularised collate options processing
* field nameaddon was missing from Biber::Constants
* Improved warning message for missing backend=biber
* SF bug 2952347 fix (empty date range end)
* uniquename counter was being provided incorrectly
0.5.1 (15-02-2010)
* Remove support for legacy control files (\jobname-blx.bib):
Biber now only reads .bcf files written by biblatex with the
option "backend=biber".
* Improved handling of "uniquename" and "namehash".
* Don't apply latexescape in bbl output, as it breaks math formatting.
0.5 (13-02-2010)
* Supports all changes introduced by biblatex 0.9
* Moved all parts relating to the experimental BibLaTeXML format to the
"biblatexml" branch on the git repo
* Communication between biblatex and Biber can be done through a
XML-based config file (extension .bcf): this is enabled with the
experimental biblatex option "backend=biber"
* Biber can now be customized with a configuration file
* Considerable refactoring and cleanup of the code
* Further enhancements to the test suite
* Improved logging mechanism
* More robust parsing of personal names
* Ignore certain prefixes and diacritics in sort strings, for
instance ��Al�� is sorted under A, and al-Hasan under H. This can
be customized in the configuration file (biber.conf).
* New command-line option --output-directory (like TeX)
* Many, many bugfixes
0.4.3 (23-07-2009)
* With biblatex option "backend=biber" and biber option --v2
the new experimental control file \jobname.bcf is used,
which brings in many new features, such as per-entrytype
settings.
* More sophisticated/customizable sorting mechanism
* More extensive test suite
* Improved BibLaTeXML schema
* improved handling of BibLaTeXML (enable nested children,
formatting elements, nosort elements)
* Do not apply latexescape() by default on xml strings
* Skip title handling in BibLaTeXML when not existing
* Ignore maxline, add option wraplines
* Built-in sort is now default (option --fastsort)
* Sorting with Unicode::Collate is possible with option --collate
* Make tests succeed w/o Parse::RD and Regexp::Common
* Don't output date and urldate in the bbl
* Add missing fields "date" "urldate" "organization" "annotator"
"foreword" and "eventtitle"
* Use Data::Dump instead of Data::Dumper for debugging
* Fields "library" and "remarks" are now skipped
* Bugfix for aliases (e.g. address, school)
* Bugfix: process urldate to get urlyear,urlmonth,urlday
* Remove illegal value shorttranslator from labelname option
* Changed biberdebug option to debug
* Changed option inputencoding to bibencoding
0.4.2 (25-04-2009)
* New option --inputencoding to handle 8-bit encoded bib files
* $BIBINPUT environment is now searched
* Improved parsing of personal names
* @comments are now silently ignored
* Fixed handling of @preamble; multiple preambles are allowed
* Warnings and errors behave more like BibTeX
* Alias fields are automatically converted (e.g. address -> location)
* Take care of "phdthesis" and "mathesis" types
* Cite keys of bib files are now case-insensitive
* Default Unicode collation now uses the table "latinkeys.txt"
(this is much faster than "allkeys.txt" which contains rules for
all Unicode glyphs)
* Unicode::Collate parameters can be passed as a command-line option
* Faster sorting (with option -f) is also possible for specific
locales given with option --locale (this is OS-dependent however)
* PRD grammar is now precompiled
* bbl output is now wrapped acc to maxline option
* Empty fields are no longer printed in the bbl
* Sorting is much improved.
* Use sortstring separators 0 1 2 like biblatex.bst
* Handle truncation of name lists acc to minnames/maxnames
* bib2biblatexml has been improved
* Windows version of Text::BibTeX provided as ppm.
* Many more bugfixes
0.4.1 (31-03-2009)
* Text::BibTeX now optional dependency
0.4 (27-03-2009)
* Initial beta release