https://github.com/joostkremers/parsebib.git
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(c) 2014 Joost Kremers
Parsebib is an Elisp library for reading .bib files. It provides functions for going through a .bib file and reading the entries one by one. There are separate functions for reading @Preamble, @String and @Comment items.
To get started reading a .bib file, use the function parsebib-find-next-item, which finds the first BibTeX item following point, where an item is either an entry, or a @Preamble, @String, or @Comment. This function moves point to the item and returns the item’s name as a string without the @ (i.e., either the entry type, or "preamble", "string", or "comment"). The functions parsebib-read-preamble, parsebib-read-string, parsebib-read-comment, and parsebib-read-entry all do as their names suggest. They start reading at the beginning of the line that point is on and thus can be used after parsebib-find-next-item. Note that parsebib-read-entry takes the entry type (as returned by parsebib-find-next-entry) as argument. All these functions take an optional position argument (either a number or a marker), from which to start searching, which defaults to point.
The reading functions return the contents of the item they read: parsebib-read-preamble and parsebib-read-comment return the text as a string. parsebib-read-string returns a cons cell of the form (<abbrev> . <string>), and parsebib-read-entry returns the entry as an alist of (<field> . <value>) pairs. The alist contains an element with the key =type=, which holds the entry type, and an element with the key =key=, which holds the entry key. All functions move point to the end of the entry.
The reading functions return nil if they do not find the element they should be reading at the line point is on. Point is nonetheless moved, however. Similarly, parsebib-find-next-item returns nil if it finds no next entry, leaving point at the end of the buffer. Additionally, it will signal an error of type parsebib-entry-type-error if it finds something that it deems to be an invalid item name. What is considered to be a valid name is determined by the regexp parsebib-bibtex-identifier, which is set to "[^^\"@\\&$#%',={}() \t\n\f]*", meaning that any string not containing whitespace or any of the characters ^"@\&$#%',={}() is considered a valid identifier.
There is one additional function: parsebib-find-bibtex-dialect. This function looks for a local variable block in a @Comment and checks if the variable bibtex-dialect is set. If it is, it returns the value that is set (as a symbol). The value should be one of the elements in bibtex-dialect-list, i.e., by default one of (BibTeX biblatex).