Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!shelby!neon!opbibtex
From: opbibtex@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Oren Patashnik)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: sorting in bibtex
Keywords: bibtex, sorting
Message-ID: <1991Feb7.175558.9848@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 7 Feb 91 17:55:58 GMT
References: <790@utrcu1.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Lines: 58

(Would somebody who knows Harmen van den Berg please mail him this
response?  He asked for e-mail replies, but all my attempts at
reaching him via e-mail failed.  The path in his article header ended
with `uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!utrcu1!uttwkt'.  Thanks.)

Your comp.text.tex article says:

> When I use BibTeX to make my list of references, I encounter the
> following problem concerning the alphabetical order in which the
> references appear. That order is not alphabetical. I have the following
> two references:
>   @phdthesis{vr78,
>     author = "P. F. de Vries Robbe",
>     title = "title",
>     school = "school",
>     year = "year" }
>   @phdthesis{v87,
>     author = "P. H. de Vries",
>     title = "title",
>     school = "school",
>     year = "year }
> These references appear in non-alphabetical order, namely [Vries Robbe]
> and [Vries], instead of [Vries] and [Vries Robbe]. Does anybody know a
> solution for this problem? (I tried using {} around Vries Robbe, but
> that didn't help.)

BibTeX's `plain' standard style gives the order you want (de Vries
followed by de Vries Robbe) so I suspect it's the bibliography style
(.bst file) that's giving you the problem.  It's hard for me to say
where the problem lies without knowing the details of the particular
style you're using, but I have several guesses.  First, if your style
uses alphabetic (rather than numeric) labels, it may be sorting first
on the label, then on the name---after all, it's the label that tells
you which item to look for in the reference list.  (Incidentally, I am
not a fan of alphabetic labels, or author-date styles, of which many
styles that use alphabetic labels are examples; if you'd like to see a
100-or-so-line spiel explaining why, let me know and I'll send you a
copy.)  Second, your style may simply have a bug in how it processes
names.  I know that in Dutch you don't alphabetize using the `de',
whereas in English we often do (because it's not nearly so common an
occurrence), so I know your style must be doing something different
from the standard styles---it may simply have done the `something
different' incorrectly.  In either case, if the style is not
appropriate for you, you should probably try to get it changed.  But
in the second case, if it's a bug that occurs only rarely, it may not
be worth the bother to fix up the style; in that case, there are easy
fixes to get the entry to come out where you want it in the reference
list.  The \noopsort macro in the xampl.bib file that's distributed
with BibTeX gives an example of how you'd do that.  If you can't
figure out what the problem is, let me know and I'm sure I can track
it down.  Hope this helps.

(By the way, it would be nice if when you post an article asking for
e-mail you would give an electronic address---say, after your name and
school affiliation---that works.  All seven addresses that I tried,
based on the header information in your article, failed.  Thanks.)

	--Oren Patashnik (opbibtex@neon.stanford.edu)