lkbib(1)

lkbib1

Search bibliographic databases

Usage

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

lkbib --help

lkbib -v

lkbib --version

Overview

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

--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

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

REFER

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

Files

/usr/dict/papers/Ind

Default database to be used if the REFER environment variable is not set.

file.i

Index files.

Releases

19 releases since Debian 1.1 (Buzz); the text changed 14 times.

  1. 1.1
  2. 1.2–1.3
  3. 2.0–2.1
  4. 2.2
  5. 3.0
  6. 3.1–5.0
  7. 6.0
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. Arch

-i since Debian 3.0 (Woody); -n since Debian 13 (Trixie); -p since Debian 3.0 (Woody); -t since Debian 3.0 (Woody).

--help until Debian 12 (Bookworm); --version until Debian 12 (Bookworm); -v until Debian 12 (Bookworm).

From groff 1.24.2-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.