Organisations in the bibliography not in alphabetical order

[772]

JabRef version

5.15 (latest release)

Operating system

GNU / Linux

Details on version and operating system

Fedora 40

Checked with the latest development build (copy version output from About dialog)

• [x] I made a backup of my libraries before testing the latest development version.
• [X] I have tested the latest development version and the problem persists

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

1. Set IsSortByPosition="false"
2. Use "{Linux Foundation}" as an author.

The bibliography is broken now and not in alphabetical order. Using {}-brackets for organisations was suggested here: https://discourse.jabref.org/t/how-to-enter-corporation-name-in-author-field/2080

Appendix

[Siedlerchr]

@subhramit This is jstyle but as you are deeper in the topic now can you take a look please?

[subhramit]

@subhramit This is jstyle but as you are deeper in the topic now can you take a look please?

Yeah sure

[subhramit]

As it looks at first sight, the order is overridden because of the curly braces {}. JabRef already stores them in BibTeX format, which has braces around them, so when explicitly added, it becomes {{organization name}}. Instead of "o", the first character to participate in the comparator is then "{".

Solution - we will have to ignore extra braces, if explicitly present. I'll take a look at this.

Temporary workaround - do not use extra braces.

[Siedlerchr]

We have a RemoveEnclosingBracesFormatter that can be used

[subhramit]

Weirdly enough, I can reproduce with {The Geany contributors} but not {Linux Foundation}. It is as if the issue is occurring in some special case.

[772]

Luckily, I have dozens of foundations and companies in my LibreOffice document. :) I think this is the pattern:

If {}-braces are used, JabRef takes the last word within the {}-brackets and sorts it like the ASCII-table. This is why "c" from contributors is above all.

{Linux Foundation} will be sorted in a wrong order, too, if you add two authors with "F" in their last name and "Foundation" is between them.

Edit: The best workaround I found so far is to replace each " " with a rare symbol like "℗". Before finishing your document, you can simply replace all "℗" with " " in LibreOffice.

[koppor]

Two thoughts:

• org.jabref.model.entry.BibEntry#getFieldLatexFree should be used as first try (if it is OK that "The" comes first). However, that ignores authors completely
• org.jabref.model.entry.AuthorList#getAsLastFirstFirstLastNamesWithAnd or similar method should be used. One needs to look at other methods for sorting...

[ryan-carpenter]

Solution - we will have to ignore extra braces, if explicitly present. I'll take a look at this.

Remember that the braces may be needed to protect the formatting of organisation names, even if the name is only one word.

[ryan-carpenter]

The best workaround I found so far is to replace each " " with a rare symbol like "℗". Before finishing your document, you can simply replace all "℗" with " " in LibreOffice.

Have you tried using no-break spaces in the organisation names? The~Geany~contributors should make the whole name behave as one word (and retain "The" in citation key).

Also, note that (without no-break spaces) capitalisation matters, at least in citation keys. {Linux Foundation} and {The Geany Contributors} produce "LinuxFoundation" and "GeanyContributors", respectively in the citation key, but {Linux foundation} and {The Geany foundation} produce "Linux" and "Geany". I am not sure if this affects the bibliography.

[772]

Have you tried using no-break spaces in the organisation names? The~Geany~contributors should make the whole name behave as one word (and retain "The" in citation key).

Yes, it has no effect. When I use The~Geany~contributors or {The~Geany~contributors}, the sorting is always wrong. It looks like the "~" is only affecting the display in the JabRef GUI but not text in the LibreOffice document.