indxbib(1)

💅 indxbib — General Commands Manual, bestie edition

okay so this is indxbib(1), and yes the man page name is literally in the title because that's just how man pages do 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

indxbib — make an inverted index for bibliographic databases. that's it, that's the whole vibe. she builds indexes. iconic behavior honestly 👑

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

indxbib [-w] [-c common-words-file] [-d dir] [-f list-file]
        [-h min-hash-table-size] [-i excluded-fields]
        [-k max-keys-per-record] [-l min-key-length] [-n threshold]
        [-o file] [-t max-key-length] [file ...]

indxbib --help

indxbib -v
indxbib --version

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so indxbib makes an inverted index for the bibliographic databases in each file, and that index is for use with refer(1), lookbib(1), and lkbib(1). found family fr 🫶

each created index is named file.i — and like, writing happens to a temporary file first which is then renamed to that name, so no half-written messy index energy 💅. if no file operands are given on the command line because the -f option has been used, and no -o option is given, the index will be named Ind.i. periodt.

bibliographic databases are divided into records by blank lines. within a record, each field starts with a % character at the beginning of a line. fields have a one letter name that follows the % character. that's the whole grammar bestie, it's lowkey elegant 🌈

now the important lore 👀 — the values set by the -c, -l, -n, and -t options are stored in the index. so when the index is searched, keys will be discarded and truncated in a manner appropriate to these options; the original keys will be used for verifying that any record found using the index actually contains the keys. this means a user of an index need not know whether these options were used in the creation of the index, provided that not all the keys to be searched for would have been discarded during indexing and that the user supplies at least the part of each key that would have remained after being truncated during indexing. it's giving "future-proof and also you don't have to care" ✨

the value set by the -i option is also stored in the index and will be used in verifying records found using the index. yes she remembers that too 💖

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• --help — displays a usage message, while -v and --version show version information; all exit afterward. short king behavior, in and out, no loitering 🚪💨
• -c common-words-file — read the list of common words from common-words-file instead of /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/eign.
• -d dir — use dir as the name of the directory to store in the index, instead of that returned by getcwd(2). typically, dir will be a symbolic link whose target is the current working directory. main character directory energy 🎀
• -f list-file — read the files to be indexed from list-file. if list-file is -, files will be read from the standard input stream. the -f option can be given at most once — do not test her, she said once 🙈
• -h min-hash-table-size — use the first prime number greater than or equal to the argument for the size of the hash table. larger values will usually make searching faster, but will make the index file larger and cause indxbib to use more memory. the default hash table size is 997. prime numbers, we stan a mathematically slay choice 🔥
• -i excluded-fields — don't index the contents of fields whose names are in excluded-fields. field names are one character each. if this option is not present, indxbib excludes fields X, Y, and Z. leave those three on read ✌️
• -k max-keys-per-record — use no more keys per input record than specified in the argument. if this option is not present, the maximum is 100.
• -l min-key-length — discard any key whose length in characters is shorter than the value of the argument. if this option is not present, the minimum key length is 3. tiny keys get ghosted 👻
• -n threshold — discard the threshold most common words from the common words file. if this option is not present, the 100 most common words are discarded. bye bye "the", "and", and the whole entourage 💀
• -o basename — name the index basename.i. you get to pick the name, slay 🦋
• -t max-key-length — truncate keys to max-key-length in characters. if this option is not present, keys are truncated to 6 characters. snip snip ✂️
• -w — index whole files. each file is a separate record. no field-splitting, just vibes 🫶

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🧚 FILES 🧚

• file.i — index for file
• Ind.i — default index name
• /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/eign — contains the list of common words. the traditional name, “eign”, is an abbreviation of “English ignored [word list]”. fun fact, iykyk 💜
• indxbibXXXXXX — temporary file. she's temporary but she's doing her best 😭

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• “Some Applications of Inverted Indexes on the Unix System”, by M. E. Lesk, 1978, AT&T Bell Laboratories Computing Science Technical Report No. 69. yes it's a whole paper, yes it's cited with full government name, we respect the classics 📚
• refer(1), lkbib(1), lookbib(1) — the rest of the friend group, go say hi 🌟

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and that's the whole page bestie, no cap, every last flag accounted for 💖✨🎀

this iconic little number is from groff 1.23.0, dated 29 October 2024 — go drink some water and index something 🫶🌸