Subject: Re: bug#57712: 29.0.50; bibtex.el: Should `bibtex-parse-entry' handle curly braces inside fields?

From: Ihor Radchenko <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2022 13:06:37 +0800

Roland Winkler <[email-masked]> writes:

> M-: (bibtex-parse-entries)

Note that bibtex.el does not have such function.

> Certainly, stripping off the braces would turn valid LaTeX code into
> gibberish.

Note the BibTeX braces, escapes, special symbols, a subset of LaTeX
commands, and LaTeX math inside BibTeX entries are a part of BibTeX
syntax (http://www.bibtex.org/SpecialSymbols/). I expect bibtex.el to
understand that syntax and parse it, so that the user of bibtex.el does
not need to implement extra parsing on top.

I understand that the BibTeX syntax is fully compatible with LaTeX and
for the purposes of LaTeX processing, there is no need to parse the
BibTeX entry contents. However, BibTeX may be used outside LaTeX. Then,
it is reasonable to expect the parsing to be done inside bibtex.el.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko,
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