Biber::Utils(3pm)

NAME
Biber::Utils - Various utility subs used in Biber

EXPORT
All functions are exported by default.

FUNCTIONS

  globU1
  Like glob, but takes a Unicode string as its argument.

  globU
  Like glob, but: (1) Takes a Unicode string as its argument, and (2) tries
  NFC and NFD variants of the pattern, to give a useful approximation to a
  normalization insensitive glob, which works when filenames are known to
  be pure NFC or pure NFD.

  This covers among others:

•   Apple's HFS+ file system, where filenames are coerced to NFD, and filenames
         \addbibresource[glob] are NFC (which is natural for keyboard entry, with
         typical keyboard layouts).

•

      Similar situation on APFS where **some** (not all) programs made files with
         NFD names even when user types in NFC.

•

      Related issues when transfer between OSs changes NF of filenames but not
         of contents of files, e.g., .tex files.

  glob_data_file
  Expands a data file glob to a list of filenames

  slurp_switchr
  Use different read encoding/slurp interfaces for Windows due to its
  horrible legacy codepage system

  slurp_switchw
  Use different write encoding/slurp interfaces for Windows due to its
  horrible legacy codepage system

  locate_data_file
  Searches for a data file by

  The exact path if the filename is absolute
  In the input_directory, if defined
  In the output_directory, if defined
  Relative to the current directory
  In the same directory as the control file
  Using kpsewhich, if available

  Check existence of NFC/NFD file variants and return correct one.
  Account for windows file encodings

  check_empty
    Wrapper around empty check to deal with Win32 Unicode filenames

  check_exists
    Wrapper around exists check to deal with Win32 Unicode filenames

  biber_warn
    Wrapper around various warnings bits and pieces.
    Add warning to the list of .bbl warnings and the master list of warnings

  biber_error
    Wrapper around error logging
    Forces an exit.

  makenamesid
Given a Biber::Names object, return an underscore normalised concatenation of all of the full name strings.

  makenameid
Given a Biber::Name object, return an underscore normalised concatenation of the full name strings.

  latex_recode_output
  Tries to convert UTF-8 to TeX macros in passed string

  strip_noinit
  Removes elements which are not to be considered during initials generation
  in names

  strip_nosort
  Removes elements which are not to be used in sorting a name from a string

  strip_nonamestring
  Removes elements which are not to be used in certain name-related operations like:

  * fullhash generation
  * uniquename generation

 from a name

  normalise_string_label
Remove some things from a string for label generation. Don't strip \p{Dash} as this is needed to process compound names or label generation.

  normalise_string_sort
Removes LaTeX macros, and all punctuation, symbols, separators as well as leading and trailing whitespace for sorting strings. Control chars don't need to be stripped as they are completely ignorable in DUCET

  normalise_string_bblxml
Some string normalisation for bblxml output

  normalise_string
Removes LaTeX macros, and all punctuation, symbols, separators and control characters, as well as leading and trailing whitespace for sorting strings. Only decodes LaTeX character macros into Unicode if output is UTF-8

  normalise_string_common
  Common bit for normalisation

  normalise_string_hash
  Normalise strings used for hashes. We collapse LaTeX macros into a vestige
  so that hashes are unique between things like:

  Smith
  {\v S}mith

  we replace macros like this to preserve their vestiges:

  \v S -> v:
  \" -> 34:

  normalise_string_underscore
  Like normalise_string, but also substitutes ~ and whitespace with underscore.

  escape_label
  Escapes a few special character which might be used in labels

  unescape_label
  Unscapes a few special character which might be used in label but which need
  sorting without escapes

  reduce_array
reduce_array(\@a, \@b) returns all elements in @a that are not in @b

  remove_outer
    Remove surrounding curly brackets:
        '{string}' -> 'string'
    but not
        '{string} {string}' -> 'string} {string'

    Return (boolean if stripped, string)

  has_outer
    Return (boolean if surrounded in braces

  add_outer
    Add surrounding curly brackets:
        'string' -> '{string}'

  ucinit
    upper case of initial letters in a string

  is_undef
    Checks for undefness of arbitrary things, including
    composite method chain calls which don't reliably work
    with defined() (see perldoc for defined())
    This works because we are just testing the value passed
    to this sub. So, for example, this is randomly unreliable
    even if the resulting value of the arg to defined() is "undef":

    defined($thing->method($arg)->method)

    whereas:

    is_undef($thing->method($arg)->method)

    works since we only test the return value of all the methods
    with defined()

  is_def
    Checks for definedness in the same way as is_undef()

  is_undef_or_null
    Checks for undef or nullness (see is_undef() above)

  is_def_and_notnull
    Checks for def and unnullness (see is_undef() above)

  is_def_and_null
    Checks for def and nullness (see is_undef() above)

  is_null
    Checks for nullness

  is_notnull
    Checks for notnullness

  is_notnull_scalar
    Checks for notnullness of a scalar

  is_notnull_array
    Checks for notnullness of an array (passed by ref)

  is_notnull_hash
    Checks for notnullness of an hash (passed by ref)

  is_notnull_object
    Checks for notnullness of an object (passed by ref)

  stringify_hash
    Turns a hash into a string of keys and values

  normalise_utf8
  Normalise any UTF-8 encoding string immediately to exactly what we want
  We want the strict perl utf8 "UTF-8"

  inits
   We turn the initials into an array so we can be flexible with them later
   The tie here is used only so we know what to split on. We don't want to make
   any typesetting decisions in Biber, like what to use to join initials so on
   output to the .bbl, we only use BibLaTeX macros.

  join_name
  Replace all join typsetting elements in a name part (space, ties) with BibLaTeX macros
  so that typesetting decisions are made in BibLaTeX, not hard-coded in Biber

  filter_entry_options
    Process any per_entry option transformations which are necessary on output

  imatch
    Do an interpolating (neg)match using a match RE and a string passed in as variables
    Using /g on matches so that $1,$2 etc. can be populated from repeated matches of
    same capture group as well as different groups

  ireplace
    Do a relatively safe interpolating match/replace using a match RE, replacement RE
    and string passed in as variables

  validate_biber_xml
  Validate a biber/biblatex XML metadata file against an RNG XML schema

  map_boolean
    Convert booleans between strings and numbers. Because standard XML "boolean"
    datatype considers "true" and "1" the same etc.

  process_entry_options
    Set per-entry options

  merge_entry_options
    Merge entry options, dealing with conflicts

  expand_option_input
    Expand options such as meta-options coming from biblatex

  parse_date_range
  Parse of ISO8601 date range

  parse_date_unspecified
  Parse of ISO8601-2:2016 4.3 unspecified format into date range
  Returns range plus specification of granularity of unspecified

  parse_date_start
  Convenience wrapper

  parse_date_end
  Convenience wrapper

  parse_date
  Parse of iso8601-2 dates

  date_monthday
  Force month/day to ISO8601-2:2016 format with leading zero

  biber_decode_utf8
    Perform NFD form conversion as well as UTF-8 conversion. Used to normalize
    bibtex input as the T::B interface doesn't allow a neat whole file slurping.

  out
  Output to target. Outputs NFC UTF-8 if output is UTF-8

  process_comment
  Fix up some problems with comments after being processed by btparse

  locale2bcp47
  Map babel/polyglossia language options to a sensible CLDR (bcp47) locale default
  Return input string if there is no mapping

  bcp472locale
  Map CLDR (bcp47) locale to a babel/polyglossia locale
  Return input string if there is no mapping

  rangelen
  Calculate the length of a range field
  Range fields are an array ref of two-element array refs [range_start, range_end]
  range_end can be be empty for open-ended range or undef
  Deals with Unicode and ASCII roman numerals via the magic of Unicode NFKD form

  m-n -> [m, n]
  m   -> [m, undef]
  m-  -> [m, '']
  -n  -> ['', n]
  -   -> ['', undef]

  match_indices
  Return array ref of array refs of matches and start indices of matches
  for provided array of compiled regexps into string

  parse_range
  Parses a range of values into a two-value array ref.
  Ranges with no starting value default to "1"
  Ranges can be open-ended and it's up to surrounding code to interpret this
  Ranges can be single figures which is shorthand for 1-x

  strip_annotation
  Removes annotation marker from a field name

  parse_range_alt
  Parses a range of values into a two-value array ref.
  Either start or end can be undef and it's up to surrounding code to interpret this

  maploopreplace
  Replace loop markers with values.

  get_transliterator
  Get a ref to a transliterator for the given from/to
  We are abstracting this in this way because it is not clear what the future
  of the transliteration library is. We want to be able to switch.

  call_transliterator
  Run a transliterator on passed text. Hides call semantics of transliterator
  so we can switch engine in the future.

AUTHOR
Philip Kime "<philip at kime.org.uk>"

BUGS
Please report any bugs or feature requests on our Github tracker at <https://github.com/plk/biber/issues>.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
Copyright 2012-2026 Philip Kime, all rights reserved.

This module is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.