R/bib2df.R

In ropensci/bib2df: Parse a BibTeX File to a Data Frame

#' @title Parse a BibTeX file to a \code{tibble}
#' @description The BibTeX file is read, parsed, tidied and written to a \code{tibble}
#' @details For simplicity \code{bib2df()} unifies the reading, parsing and tidying of a BibTeX file while being aware of a standardized output format, different BibTeX styles and missing values in the BibTeX file.
#' @details When \code{separate_names = TRUE}, the respective columns contain a \code{data.frame} for each row. When \code{FALSE}, the respective columns contain character strings.
#' @param file character, path or URL to a .bib file.
#' @param separate_names logical, should authors' and editors' names be separated into first and given name?
#' @param merge_lines logical, set to \code{FALSE} by default. If set to \code{TRUE} identifies entries that span several lines and merges them
#' @return A \code{tibble}.
#' @importFrom httr GET
#' @author Philipp Ottolinger
#' @examples
#' # Read from .bib file:
#' path <- system.file("extdata", "bib2df_testfile_3.bib", package = "bib2df")
#' bib <- bib2df(path)
#' str(bib)
#'
#' # Read from .bib file and separate authors' and editors' names:
#' bib <- bib2df(path, separate_names = TRUE)
#' str(bib)
#' @seealso \code{\link{df2bib}}
#' @export
bib2df <- function(file, separate_names = FALSE, merge_lines = FALSE) {

  if (!is.character(file)) {
    stop("Invalid file path: Non-character supplied.", call. = FALSE)
  }
  if (grepl("http://|https://|www.", file)) {
    tryCatch(
      { GET(file) },
      error = function(e) {
        stop("Invalid URL: File is not readable.", call. = FALSE)
      }
    )
  } else {
    if (as.numeric(file.access(file, mode = 4)) != 0) {
      stop("Invalid file path: File is not readable.", call. = FALSE)
    }
  }


  bib <- bib2df_read(file)
  if(merge_lines == TRUE){bib <- bib2df_merge_lines(bib)}
  bib <- bib2df_gather(bib)
  bib <- bib2df_tidy(bib, separate_names)
  return(bib)
}