scanrfc

README

scanrfc - Generate .bib files for IETF RFCs

While writing my thesis I needed something to quickly fetch bibliography information for IETF RFCs. Since I didn't find a solution that worked for me, I built one. Here it is.

$ rfc scan example

$ head rfc.bib
@misc{rfc6020,
        series =        {Request for Comments},
        number =        6020,
        howpublished =  {RFC 6020},
[...]
% Datatracker information for RFCs on the Legacy Stream is unfortunately often
% incorrect. Please correct the bibtex below based on the information in the
% actual RFC at https://rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1337.txt

@misc{rfc1337,
        series =        {Request for Comments},
        number =        1337,
        howpublished =  {RFC 1337},
        publisher =     {RFC Editor},
[...]

Is it any good?

Yes.

Usage

scanrfc can either scan a directory for citation keys and generate a .bib file or fetch RFCs that are passed as arguments.

rfc scan

To scan text files (.md or .tex) for citation keys citing an RFC either as [@rfc8040] or \cite{rfc7430} and writes the bibliography information found for each RFC to rfc.bib. If requests the BibTex information provided by the IETF datatracker (for example https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc7430/bibtex/), if that's not present it fetches the respective JSON information from https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/$RFC/doc.json. If no information for an RFC is found an error is logged, rfc.bib is created for all entries that were found.

rfc fetch

Bibliography information can be fetched and logged to stdout using the fetch command:

$ rfc fetch rfc1337
% Datatracker information for RFCs on the Legacy Stream is unfortunately often
% incorrect. Please correct the bibtex below based on the information in the
% actual RFC at https://rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1337.txt

@misc{rfc1337,
        series =        {Request for Comments},
        number =        1337,
        howpublished =  {RFC 1337},
        publisher =     {RFC Editor},
        doi =           {10.17487/RFC1337},
        url =           {https://rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1337.txt},
        author =        {Robert T. Braden},
        title =         {{TIME-WAIT Assassination Hazards in TCP}},
        pagetotal =     11,
        year =          1992,
        month =         may,
        abstract =      {This note describes some theoretically-possible failure modes for TCP connections and discusses possible remedies. In particular, one very simple fix is identified. This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard.},
}

Configutaion

The output file is saved as rfc.bib to the current working directory. If a .scanrfc.yaml file is found in either the user's home directory or in the working directory is is used by scanrfc. The output directory can be configured using this file and the bib-file key.

Documentation

Index

• func FetchJSON(rfc string) ([]byte, error)
• func FetchRFC(rfc ...string) [][]byte
• func ParseJsonResponse(rfc string, resp []byte) ([]byte, error)
• func Scan(path string) ([]string, error)
• func WriteFile(entries [][]byte) error
• type Author
• type JsonDate
  • func (j JsonDate) MarshalJSON() ([]byte, error)
  • func (jd *JsonDate) UnmarshalJSON(b []byte) error
• type RfcEntry
  • func CreateEntry(n string, b []byte) (*RfcEntry, error)

Functions

func FetchJSON

func FetchJSON(rfc string) ([]byte, error)

func FetchRFC

func FetchRFC(rfc ...string) [][]byte

func ParseJsonResponse

func ParseJsonResponse(rfc string, resp []byte) ([]byte, error)

func Scan

func Scan(path string) ([]string, error)

func WriteFile

func WriteFile(entries [][]byte) error

Types

type Author

type Author struct {
	Name        string `json:"name"`
	Email       string `json:"email"`
	Affiliation string `json:"affiliation"`
}

type JsonDate

type JsonDate time.Time

func (JsonDate) MarshalJSON

func (j JsonDate) MarshalJSON() ([]byte, error)

func (*JsonDate) UnmarshalJSON

func (jd *JsonDate) UnmarshalJSON(b []byte) error

type RfcEntry

type RfcEntry struct {
	Number   string
	Authors  []Author `json:"authors"`
	Title    string   `json:"title"`
	Pages    int      `json:"pages"`
	Year     int
	Month    string
	Abstract string `json:"abstract"`

	Date JsonDate `json:"time"`
}

func CreateEntry

func CreateEntry(n string, b []byte) (*RfcEntry, error)