Bisc version 0.01
=================

Bibtex file validation tool

While 'bisc' replicates some of the available tools functionality, the main purpose
of the tool is not 'pretty print' or 'validation' of bibtex files, but such things
as interaction with latex files e.g. extraction of bibtex entries referenced, search
across multiple bibliography files, enforcement of some custom syntax rules,
name processing, since the original parser is somewhat loose. Among other things
bisc allows to validate fields values against set of custom regular expressions, report
missing required fields, check for duplicate strings and entry names etc.
Detailed information on 'bisc' functionality can be found at the tool's man
page or in doc/bisc.html (both are from pod documentation located in bin/bisc).

DEPENDENCIES

This module requires the following modules and libraries:
    Parse::Yapp
    GNU flex
    pod2html
    gcc, ld, ar, ranlib and friends

CROSS SYSTEM COMPATIBILITY

Ideally the tool should work just fine in any POSIX compliant system.
In reality, I am afraid, that would not be true. At the moment this tool
is tested in Linux only. Same applies to perl version. 'bisc' is designed
using gcc 4.5 compiler and perl 5.12.3, but lower versions should be fine.

INSTALLATION

This software is a perl XS module (flex is used as lexer), so to install it type the following:
   perl Makefile.PL
   make

If you also want to run 'bisc' test suite (optional):
   make test

For system wide installation please type:
   make install

If you just want to try the software without a complete install ('uninstall' target is not supported),
you can source 'env' script in the root directory, which would put everything in your path, including
a path for manual pages:
    . ./env
or
    source ./env

If you use bash shell, you can also find a bash-completion file in 'tools' directory called
'bisc.complete'. You can manually source it for auto-completion functionality (./env will source
it automatically if you are in bash):
    . ./tools/bisc.complete

BUGS

I am afraid there are a few. Unfortunately I am not aware of them.
Bug reports are very welcome.
Please send bug reports to:
    'kvorobyo at bond dot edu dot au'