[[!template id=bzrrepo repo=pybtex]]

I keep my [[BibTeX]] databases neat and tidy with my own branch of
[Pybtex][].  The actual command used to re-format the files is

    $ python -c 'from pybtex.database.input.bibtex import Parser; from pybtex.database.output.clean_bibtex import Writer; p = Parser(); d = p.parse_file("path/to/db.bib"); w = Writer(); w.write_file(d, "path/to/db.bib", p.get_raw_macros())' 2> pybtex.log

Be sure to look over `pybtex.log` and `git diff path/to/db.bib` for
anything suspicious before committing the new file (you are versioning
it with [[Git]] right? ;).  You may have to do some find-and-replacing
to handle changed keys and consolidate or rename automatically
generated macros.

You might also be interested in [bibtool][], but I'm more comfortable
tweaking things in [[Python]].


[Pybtex]: http://pybtex.sourceforge.net/
[bibtool]: http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/biblio/bibtex/utils/bibtool/


[[!tag tags/latex]]
[[!tag tags/programming]]
[[!tag tags/python]]
[[!tag tags/tools]]