Biber Changelog

What's new in Biber 2.6

Dec 10, 2016
  • 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

New in Biber 2.6 Beta (May 23, 2016)

  • Added extended name format
  • Added notfield function to sourcemaps

New in Biber 2.5 (May 13, 2016)

  • 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

New in Biber 2.4 (Mar 2, 2016)

  • 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.

New in Biber 2.3 (Dec 23, 2015)

  • Misc bug fixes.

New in Biber 2.2 (Oct 28, 2015)

  • 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

New in Biber 2.1 (May 7, 2015)

  • Misc bug fixes

New in Biber 2.0 (Apr 20, 2015)

  • 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

New in Biber 1.9 (May 26, 2014)

  • 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)

New in Biber 1.8 (May 26, 2014)

  • Perl 5.18 compatibility (hash order randomisation)
  • Removed Data::Diver module due to linux licensing restrictions
  • Misc Bug Fixes

New in Biber 0.9.3 (Jun 20, 2011)

  • New mininit and minfull uniquename options
  • New mindate 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).

New in Biber 0.5.5 (Aug 31, 2010)

  • Biber::BibTeX moved to Biber::Input::BibTeX. If upgrading, please remove
  • your installed /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 /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

New in Biber 0.5.4 (Aug 5, 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

New in Biber 0.5.3 (Apr 15, 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

New in Biber 0.4.2 (May 10, 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!

New in Biber 0.4 Beta (Mar 27, 2009)

  • Initial release.