auctex - no valid bibliography?

auctex - no valid bibliography?

[Tyler]

Hi,

I have a problem with auctex mode. I just saved my current document and 
.bib file so I could close and restart, to test a new .emacs file. When 
I re-opened my .tex file I found I couldn't insert new citations:

C-c [

When I try, I get to the screen where I select what style of citation I 
want, but after I select it emacs reports:

"No valid bibliography in this document, and no default available"

I haven't changed anything in the bibliography commands, or the source 
.bib file, and it worked just five minutes ago. I can still compile 
fine, and the output is ok, including all the citations and the 
references. I just can't use the auctex features to automatically add 
more references.

Please help!

Tyler

Re: auctex - no valid bibliography?

[Tyler]

Ok, I have solved the first problem, but I don't understand it.

While playing with options for binding italics to C-i, I tried M-i 
instead. I figured I didn't use the command that was currently bound to 
M-i, and that would avoid the problems with C-i/tab from my other 
thread. But as I've now discovered, binding M-i to my macro C-c C-f C-i 
somehow cripples auctex's very handy citation/cross-referencing 
functions. Is that normal?

Thanks,

Tyler

Re: auctex - no valid bibliography?

[David Kastrup]

Tyler <tyler.smith@mail.mcgill.ca> writes:

> I have a problem with auctex mode. I just saved my current document
> and .bib file so I could close and restart, to test a new .emacs
> file. When I re-opened my .tex file I found I couldn't insert new
> citations:
>
> C-c [
>
> When I try, I get to the screen where I select what style of citation
> I want, but after I select it emacs reports:
>
> "No valid bibliography in this document, and no default available"
>
> I haven't changed anything in the bibliography commands, or the source
> .bib file, and it worked just five minutes ago. I can still compile
> fine, and the output is ok, including all the citations and the
> references. I just can't use the auctex features to automatically add
> more references.

It is possible that your .bib file has the same file name before the
extension as your .tex file.  AUCTeX currently does not deal well with
that situation.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: auctex - no valid bibliography?

[Tyler]

David Kastrup wrote:

> It is possible that your .bib file has the same file name before the
> extension as your .tex file.  AUCTeX currently does not deal well with
> that situation.
> 

No, they have very distinct names, chaptertwo.tex and ty.bib.

I think I finally got to the bottom of this. I realised bibtex was 
working properly, but reftex wasn't. The version of LaTex I'm using is 
tetex on debian, which uses the kpsewhich program to manage paths. So I 
needed to add the following to my .emacs file so that reftex knew to 
also use the kpsewhich program:

(setq reftex-external-file-finders
       '(("tex" . "kpsewhich -format=.tex %f")
	("bib" . "kpsewhich -format=.bib %f")))

This is in the reftex info pages, in the section under finding files. It 
took me awhile to find it as I didn't realise the problem wasn't with 
auctex, or bibtex, but with reftex.

Hopefully that will resolve my problem permanently, and maybe save 
someone else some time in future.

Cheers,

Tyler