problems with Annote field in bibtex file (ignore Annote field?)

[maxheld83]

as in #2002 , I'm having some trouble with Annote fields in my bibtex.

It's a bit odd because

• the file was completely written by BibDesk, and one would expect it to be ok,
• many of the offending Annote fields are not actually manually entered, but come from some OPAC import (Library of Congress record or sth like that), so it's not obvious why/how they are wrong.

I'm just posting some of these offending fields here, so maybe we can get a handle on the broader issue.

The error thrown for the below sections is of this type:

/usr/local/bin/pandoc tax-democracy.utf8.md --to latex --from markdown+autolink_bare_uris+ascii_identifiers+tex_math_single_backslash --output tax-democracy.pdf --filter /usr/local/bin/pandoc-citeproc --table-of-contents --toc-depth 2 --template /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.1/Resources/library/rmarkdown/rmd/latex/default.tex --number-sections --highlight-style tango --latex-engine /usr/bin/pdflatex --variable 'geometry:margin=1in' --bibliography ../held-library/held_library.bib 
pandoc-citeproc: 
Error at "source" (line 22, column 81):
unexpected end of input
expecting "\\" or "$"
856 41 $3Table of contents$uhttp://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/els031/2002102557.html
                                                                                ^
pandoc: Error running filter /usr/local/bin/pandoc-citeproc
Error: pandoc document conversion failed with error 83

(though oddly, the line and colum nmake no sense

Maybe pandoc-citeproc could just completely ignore the Annote fields?

@book{Uskali-2012,
    Author = {M{\"a}ki, Uskali},
    Call-Number = {HB72},
    Date-Added = {2014-05-30 18:32:13 +0000},
    Date-Modified = {2014-06-30 19:32:18 +0000},
    Dewey-Call-Number = {330.01},
    Genre = {Economics},
    Isbn = {9780444516763},
    Library-Id = {2012406303},
    Publisher = {Elsevier},
    Series = {Handbook of the Philosophy of Science},
    Title = {Philosophy of Economics},
    Volume = {Volume 13},
    Year = {2012},
    Annote = {LDR    01227cam  2200301 i 4500
001    17398841
005    20140108132232.0
008    120724s2012    ne       b    001 0 eng
906    $a7$bcbc$corigres$d2$encip$f20$gy-gencatlg
925 0  $aacquire$b2 shelf copies$xpolicy default
955    $bxj87 2012-07-24 z-processor$irm13 2013-10-23$erm13 2013-10-23 to Dewey$wxl03 2014-01-08
010    $a  2012406303
020    $a9780444516763
040    $aDLC$beng$cDLC$erda$dDLC
042    $apcc
050 00 $aHB72$b.P475 2012
082 00 $a330.01$223
245 00 $aPhilosophy of Economics /$cEdited by Uskali M{\"a}ki, Director, Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland, Department of Political and Economic Studies.
264  1 $aAMSTERDAM :$bNorth Holland is an imprint of Elsevier,$c2012.
300    $axxi, 903 pages ;$c26 cm
336    $atext$2rdacontent
337    $aunmediated$2rdamedia
338    $avolume$2rdacarrier
504    $aIncludes bibliographical references and indexes.
490 0  $aHandbook of the Philosophy of Science ;$vVolume 13
650  0 $aEconomics$xPhilosophy.
650  0 $aEconomics$xMethodology.
700 1  $aM{\"a}ki, Uskali.
}}

@book{Tresch-2002,
    Address = {Amsterdam},
    Author = {Tresch, Richard W},
    Call-Number = {HJ236},
    Class = {Give and Take -- Deliberative Democracy and Taxation 2014, Give and Take -- Deliberative Democracy and Taxation 2014},
    Date-Added = {2014-05-30 18:30:43 +0000},
    Date-Modified = {2014-06-29 11:13:33 +0000},
    Dewey-Call-Number = {336},
    Edition = {2nd ed},
    Genre = {Finance, Public},
    Isbn = {0126990514},
    Library-Id = {2002102557},
    Publisher = {Academic Press},
    Title = {Public finance: a normative theory},
    Url = {http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/els031/2002102557.html},
    Year = {2002},
    Annote = {LDR    01116cam  2200277 a 4500
001    12688981
005    20030709193814.0
008    020220s2002    ne a     b    001 0 eng
035    $a(DLC)  2002102557
906    $a7$bcbc$corignew$d2$eepcn$f20$gy-gencatlg
925 0  $aacquire$b2 shelf copies$xpolicy default
955    $apc21 2002-02-20$apv21 2002-06-06 to SSCD$ase00 2002-06-17$ise45 2002-07-30$ese45 2002-07-30; TO Dewey$aaa03 2002-08-06;$aCopy 2 to BCCD sp55 2002-10-21
010    $a  2002102557
020    $a0126990514
040    $aDLC$cDLC$dDLC
050 00 $aHJ236$b.T73 2002
082 00 $a336$221
100 1  $aTresch, Richard W.
245 10 $aPublic finance :$ba normative theory /$cRichard W. Tresch.
250    $a2nd ed.
260    $aAmsterdam ;$aBoston :$bAcademic Press,$cc2002.
300    $axxiii, 950 p. :$bill. ;$c24 cm.
504    $aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
650  0 $aFinance, Public.
856 42 $3Publisher description$uhttp://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/els031/2002102557.html
856 41 $3Table of contents$uhttp://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/els031/2002102557.html
},
    Bdsk-Url-1 = {http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/els031/2002102557.html}

[jgm]

My guess is that the problem is the $s. Pandoc interprets the contents of these fields as TeX, and $ means math mode. I haven't run experiments with biblatex. Perhaps biblatex just ignores the contents of the field -- though it would have to at least keep track of braces to see where the field ends?

[maxheld83]

yes thank you @jgm I can confirm that $ is the cause of these kinds of errors. now if only I'd remember where downloaded this metadata, so I could shout at those people.

[jgm]

I can confirm (a) that this bib file works okay with pdflatex and biber, (b) that replacing the $ symbols with ! makes it work with pandoc.

[jgm]

My guess is that biber just ignores the $s, since it doesn't really need to parse this LaTeX; it just passes it on verbatim. My guess is that if you used a style that actually printed the Annote field, rather than just ignoring it, you'd then get an error from pdflatex.

Should pandoc be changed to handle this better? I'm not sure.

[maxheld83]

thanks. That makes sense. Seems like a problem that is caused on the bibtex generation side, not really a pandoc issue. Wish people would stick to the spec.