Emulate the numeric style multiple cite, with ieee style in biblatex?

Question

I am using the style=ieee in biblatex; however, when it comes to multiple cites, I would like to emulate the style=numeric of biblatex. Consider the MWE:

% rebuild command - bash:
% (shopt -s extglob; rm test.!(tex)) && pdflatex test.tex && biber test && pdflatex test.tex && pdflatex test.tex

\documentclass{book}

\usepackage[colorlinks=true,citecolor=blue]{hyperref}
\usepackage[%
  style=ieee,
%   style=numeric,
  isbn=true,
  doi=false,
  sorting=none,
  url=true,
  defernumbers=true,
  bibencoding=utf8,
  backend=biber
]{biblatex}

\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
% https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/74296/to-have-no-pagebreak-before-bibliography
\defbibheading{secbib}[\bibname]{%
  \section*{#1}%
  \markboth{#1}{#1}}

\begin{document}

\noindent
Style is: \makeatletter \texttt{\blx@bbxfile} \makeatother

Testing single \verb!\cite!: \cite{aristotle:poetics}, \cite{augustine}, \cite{aksin}, \cite{angenendt};

Testing multiple \verb!\cite!: \cite{augustine, angenendt, aristotle:poetics, aksin}

Testing \verb!\cites!: \cites{aksin}{augustine}{aristotle:poetics}

\printbibliography[heading=secbib]

\end{document}

The results for ieee vs numeric styles are like this:

As it is visible, in ieee, the output of multiple cites in a single command like \cite{citA,citB...} is compacted to [1]-[2], while the biblatex \cites{citA}{citB}... outputs full citations with square brackets with commas in-between: [1], [2], ....

In contrast, for either of those commands, the numeric style opens a single pair of square brackets, and has the citation indexes inside, separated with a comma [1, 2, ...] (and the ordering of citations kept, related Biblatex, numeric style, multicite: Order of references) - which is what I want to achieve with the ieee style.

What would be a way to achieve this? I wouldn't mind using a custom citation command for this ( I just don't know really where to start ), so I could keep keep the default behavior of \cite and \cites in ieee as-is - but ultimately, any suggestion for a fix is welcome :)

Answer 1

With biblatex it is possible to combine different "style" of bibliography, in particular, you can combine the ieee style to control how the bibliography is printed, and numeric-comp to control the output of cite commands:

What you need is:

\usepackage[%
  bibstyle=ieee,
  citestyle=numeric,
  isbn=true,
  doi=false,
  sorting=none,
  url=true,
  defernumbers=true,
  bibencoding=utf8,
  backend=biber
]{biblatex} 

which produces the following output (with the provided MWE)

Answer 2

I was kinda curious to see how could I go about if I wanted to keep all cite commands in ieee as they are, and simply have a new cite command that would behave as numeric \cite in this environment; so I'll post the example here. It's a bit of a hack, but a new command \nmcite is introduced, which exhibits this behavior:

... and the code (with relevant comments), here:

% rebuild command - bash:
% (shopt -s extglob; rm test.!(tex)) && pdflatex test.tex && biber test && pdflatex test.tex && pdflatex test.tex

\documentclass{book}

\usepackage[colorlinks=true,citecolor=blue]{hyperref}

% \usepackage{trace}

\usepackage[%
  style=ieee,
%   style=numeric,
  isbn=true,
  doi=false,
  %sorting=none, % ieee.cbx does sorting=none
  url=true,
  defernumbers=true,
  bibencoding=utf8,
  backend=biber
]{biblatex}


\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
% http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/74296/to-have-no-pagebreak-before-bibliography
\defbibheading{secbib}[\bibname]{%
  \section*{#1}%
  \markboth{#1}{#1}}

% defernumbers=true: "... numeric labels (i. e., the labelnumber field discussed in § 4.2.4) are assigned the first time an entry is printed in any bibliography. ... requires two LaTeX runs ..."
%
% ieee.cbx: \RequireCitationStyle{numeric-comp}
% numeric-comp; "A compact variant of the numeric style which prints a list of more than two consecutive numbers as a range. This style is similar to the cite package and the sort&compress option of the natbib package in numerical mode. For example, instead of “[8, 3, 1, 7, 2]” this style would print “[1–3, 7, 8]”."
% numeric-comp.cbx: \ExecuteBibliographyOptions{labelnumber,sortcites,autocite=inline}
% numeric.cbx: \ExecuteBibliographyOptions{labelnumber,autocite=inline}
%
% \DeclareBibliographyOption{sortcites}[true]{%
%     {\let\blx@thecitesort\blx@citesort % \blx@citenosort
%
% > \blx@thecitesort=macro: ->\ifnum \blx@tempcnta >\@ne \blx@filtercitesort %% which loops through list: \ifinlistcs {##1}{#2} {\listadd #1{##1}\advance ...
%
% \protected\def\blx@citeloop#1{% uses \blx@thecitesort !
%
% so: {\makeatletter \let\blx@thecitesort\blx@citenosort \makeatother \nmcite{} } works to suppress cite sorting; if \nmcite is just direct copy from numeric.cbx
% BUT - it can also be localised if \let..\blx@citenosort is right before the \mkbibbrackets option (it doesn't interfere then with rest of code; ieee \cite works as usual = probably that runs inside local scope grouping)
%
% these are otherwise just renamed copies from biblatex/cbx/numeric.cbx:

\newbibmacro*{nmcite}{%
  \printtext[bibhyperref]{%
    \printfield{prefixnumber}%
    \printfield{labelnumber}%
    \ifbool{bbx:subentry}
      {\printfield{entrysetcount}}
      {}}}
\makeatletter
\DeclareCiteCommand{\nmcite}[%
 \let\blx@thecitesort\blx@citenosort%
 \mkbibbrackets]
  {\usebibmacro{prenote}}
  {\usebibmacro{citeindex}%
   \usebibmacro{nmcite}}
  {\multicitedelim}
  {\usebibmacro{postnote}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\noindent
Style is: \makeatletter \texttt{\blx@bbxfile};
% \show\blx@filtercitesort
\makeatother

Testing single \verb!\cite!: \cite{aristotle:poetics}, \cite{augustine}, \cite{aksin}, \cite{angenendt};

Testing multiple \verb!\cite!: \cite{augustine, angenendt, aristotle:poetics, aksin}

Testing \verb!\cites!: \cites{aksin}{augustine}{aristotle:poetics}

% \traceon
% {
% \makeatletter
% \let\blx@thecitesort\blx@citenosort \makeatother
Testing \verb!\nmcite!: \nmcite{augustine, angenendt, aristotle:poetics, aksin}
% }
% \traceoff

Testing \verb!\nmcite!: \nmcite{angenendt, aristotle:poetics, aksin}

Testing multiple \verb!\cite!: \cite{angenendt, aristotle:poetics, aksin}

Testing multiple \verb!\cite!: \cite{augustine, angenendt, aristotle:poetics, aksin}

\printbibliography[heading=secbib]

\end{document}