Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist

* Package name    : biber
  Version         : 0.5.5
  Upstream Author : mailadress_was_not_availa...@the_sourceforge_project.site
* URL             : http://biblatex-biber.sourceforge.net/
* License         : Artistic License, GNU General Public License (GPL)
  Programming Lang: Perl
  Description     : BibTeX replacement for users of biblatex

The biblatex package by Philipp Lehman is likely to become the definitive 
citation management tool for LaTeX users. Biblatex relies on the venerable 
BibTeX program only for sorting and generating a very generic bbl file without 
any formatting instruction. Everything else is taken care of by biblatex, which 
provides a powerful and flexible macro interface for authors of citation styles.

With Biber it is no longer necessary to rely on BibTeX. For maximal 
portability, the current version includes a Pure Perl BibTeX parser with a 
Parse::RecDescent grammar, but if available it will use the much faster 
Text::BibTeX module which relies on the btparse C library. The objective of the 
first development phase is to have a robust and reliable emulation of the 
BibTeX processor with the biblatex.bst style file. In other words, given the 
same data file as input, biber should output a functionally identical .bbl file 
as BibTeX.

In a future version, Biber will also support a new XML format tailored 
specifically for biblatex data, unimaginatively called BibLaTeXML. It owes its 
inspiration partly to the BibTeXML format, but it is far more complex. RelaXNG 
and W3C schemata will be provided, as well as a tool for converting .bib files 
to biblatexml. To parse BibLaTeXML databases the Perl module XML::LibXML is 
required. There is also experimental support for Berkeley DBXML databases (with 
the included Perl module Sleepycat::DbXml).

The advantages of no longer being dependent upon BibTeX are obvious: full 
Unicode support, no memory limitations, extensibility, etc. In the future, 
support for communication with embedded or relational databases (e.g. Berkeley 
DB, SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL) or remote resources via network protocols (such 
as SRU) might also be implemented.



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