bibtex dialect defect?

[Ikumi Keita]

Hi all,

I think that AUCTeX built-in bibliography management has fundamental
flaw.

The attached archive contains the following files:
foo/
foo/tst-bib.tex
foo/jr.bib
foo/auto/
foo/auto/jr.el

"tst-bib.tex" is just a test file.
"jr.bib" is copy of a .bib file in TeX Live distribution.

This "auto/jr.el" was created by adding a dummy edit to jr.bib and
typing C-x C-s, with `TeX-auto-save' being t.

The problem is, that the contents of "auto/jr.el" is not used at all
afterwards.
[How to confirm]
1. emacs -q -l auctex.el
2. Open "tst-bib.tex".
3. Type C-c C-m cite RET at some suitable buffer position.
4. Emacs asks "Key: " in minibuffer, but no completion is available.

This means that the `LaTeX-add-bibitems' call added as "jr" style hook
with ":bibtex" dialect hasn't been called. You can confirm it by
evaluating `(LaTeX-bibitem-list)', which returns nil.

The LaTeX mode does load "auto/jr.el". However, it doesn't run the
associated style hook because the hook is registred as ":bibtex"
dialect, not ":latex".

Even when you open "jr.bib", the hook isn't run because bibtex-mode
doesn't run AUCTeX style hooks.

In these ways, AUCTeX never runs style hooks with ":bibtex" dialect.

This defect didn't cause major problem. I think practically all AUCTeX
users who need bibtex facility use RefTeX (or bib-cite.el?) so defect in
AUCTeX built-in bibliography management has been overlooked so far.

What should we do? To fix style hook management so that AUCTeX built-in
scheme works properly? Or to announce that "Use RefTeX always when
bibtex management is needed" and stop support of built-in scheme? Or
something else?

Regards,
Ikumi Keita

foo.tar.gz
Description: sample kit