Take bibtex key into account in "find duplicates"

[wujastyk]

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JabRef 5.0-dev--snapshot--2019-02-04--master--a0c2e04ea
Linux 4.15.0-45-generic amd64
Java 1.8.0_201

When using "Find duplicates" bib items that have different bibtex keys are presented as if they were duplicates. It would be good to be able to switch on a setting that excluded items that appear to be duplicates by JabRef's criteria but that have different bibtex keys. For example, Smith-2012a and Smith-2012b will be judged duplicates if their field contents are similar, but they may be two volumes of a book or two successive articles on a similar subject.

[tobiasdiez]

I understand where you are coming from, but this suggestion makes the duplicate search rather pointless. If only entries with the same key are considered a duplicate, then you can spot these duplicates also pretty easily by going through the main table (with sorted key colmn).

Instead, we should improve the find duplicate functionality so that such false positives are not found. If I'm not mistaken, then we already use volume and edition as criteria to exclude false positives. If you have further suggestions, then we can of course include them. I'll close this issue however as I don't see us implementing the original proposal.

[wujastyk]

Dear Tobias, My situation is that (almost?) all entries in my 3 MB BibTeX database have been duplicated. Or at least, it looks like that. This has happened before, and is the result of some JabRef glitch somewhere that I don't know how to track down. My entries are uniquely identified by their BibTeX keys. So what I need now is a utility to find all duplicate entries according to BibTeX key, and delete them. JabRef has a nice "find duplicate keys" feature as part of the integrity check. But then I have to manually click through about four thousand entries, deleting them one at a time (in a different window). Or I can do it as you suggest, just sorting the key column. But I still have to delete thousands of alternate entries manually, which is time-consuming and error-prone. I can't easily roll back to a backup because it took me a while to realize that all the entries were duplicated, and in the meantime I had added and updated some entries. So when I compare my backup with the present file I get overwhelmed by thousands of differences and I can't uniquely identify my new additions. Best, Dominik

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On Tue, 5 Feb 2019 at 16:22, Tobias Diez ***@***.***> wrote: I understand where you are coming from, but this suggestion makes the duplicate search rather pointless. If only entries with the same key are considered a duplicate, then you can spot these duplicates also pretty easily by going through the main table (with sorted key colmn). Instead, we should improve the find duplicate functionality so that such false positives are not found. If I'm not mistaken, then we already use volume and edition as criteria to exclude false positives. If you have further suggestions, then we can of course include them. I'll close this issue however as I don't see us implementing the original proposal. — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4631 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAuhhrpmPM-pOyJL-R5EFynZKPqi30Avks5vKhIVgaJpZM4akHd6> .

[mlep]

@wujastyk : if JabRef is of no help (at least in the short term), bibtool may be helpful. Check its -d option (not tested). See https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/biblio/bibtex/utils/bibtool/

[wujastyk]

Thank you. On Monday I did in fact spend some time with the Bibtool documentation, including -d. You're right, that Bibtool can probably do the job I need, quite fast. But I am very busy with teaching and writing, and the Bibtool documentation is not great (lacks simple examples), and I just didn't have time to get Bibtool to do the precise job I need. :-( Thanks, nevertheless, for the pointer to Bibtool. Perhaps I can try again at the weekend.

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On Wed, 6 Feb 2019 at 03:20, MLEP ***@***.***> wrote: @wujastyk <https://github.com/wujastyk> : if JabRef is of no help (at least in the short term), bibtool may be helpful. Check its -d option (not tested). See https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/biblio/bibtex/utils/bibtool/ — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4631 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAuhhj5IJwjAKAwGhXGOpdYpYUvOVy6Zks5vKqx_gaJpZM4akHd6> .