Removing title from citation of a translated article in biblatex

Question

A previous answer shows how to remove the title for presumably all citations in a document. Unfortunately \clearfield{title} does not work for the titles of translated articles. \DeclareFieldFormat{title}{} does work, however, but for reasons specified in the previous answer it is not an ideal solution due to extra punctuation.

Here is a minimum working example. Note that the Russian title is kept but the English translation's title is not.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{skrebkov_turbulentnyye_1963,
  title = {Turbulentnyye pul'satsii v zhidkoy struye i yeye raspylivaniye},
  issn = {0869-5032},
  url = {http://www.sibran.ru/journals/issue.php?ID=160175&ARTICLE_ID=160248},
  number = {3},
  journaltitle = {Prikladnaya mekhanika i tekhnicheskaya fizika},
  author = {Skrebkov, G. P.},
  date = {1963-05},
  pages = {79--83}
}

@article{skrebkov_turbulent_1966,
  title = {Turbulent {{Pulsations}} in a {{Liquid Jet}}, and {{Its Atomization}}},
  url = {http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/AD0635269},
  number = {3},
  journaltitle = {Journal of Applied Mechanics and Technical Physics (Foreign Technology Division)},
  author = {Skrebkov, G. P.},
  date = {1966-02-16},
  pages = {142--151},
  related = {skrebkov_turbulentnyye_1963},
  relatedtype = {translationof}
}
\end{filecontents}

\usepackage[style=numeric,backend=biber]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\AtEveryBibitem{\clearfield{title}}
\renewbibmacro{in:}{}

\begin{document}
\nocite{skrebkov_turbulent_1966}

\printbibliography

\end{document}

Additionally, if anyone knows how to remove the extraneous period in "Trans. of.", I'd be appreciative.

Answer 1

You can use

\DeclareFieldInputHandler{title}{\def\NewValue{}}

or

\DeclareSourcemap{
  \maps[datatype=bibtex]{
    \map{
      \step[fieldset=title, null]
    }
  }
}

to get rid of the title field more effectively.

The first causes biblatex to never read the title from the .bbl, while the second causes Biber to discard the title when reading the .bib file, so that it does not even appear in the .bbl.

\AtEveryBibitem{\clearfield{title}} on the other hand, creates a hook that is executed whenever a bibliography item is printed. It then temporarily deletes the title. The title of the translation is not deleted since it belongs to a different entry. But the hook is not executed again when the related entry is processed.

The source mapping approach can also be restricted to certain types only

\DeclareSourcemap{
  \maps[datatype=bibtex]{
    \map{
      \pertype{article}
      \step[fieldset=title, null]
    }
  }
}

It is also possible to restrict \DeclareFieldnputHandler by type, but that needs a slight change of some internal macros at the moment

\makeatletter
\protected\def\blx@bbl@entry#1#2#3{%
  \begingroup
  \edef\abx@field@entrykey{\detokenize{#1}}%
  \blx@setoptions@type{#2}%
  \blx@bbl@options{#3}%
  \blx@setoptions@entry
  \edef\blx@bbl@data{blx@data@\the\c@refsection @\blx@dlist@name @\abx@field@entrykey}%
  \blx@bbl@addfield{entrykey}{\abx@field@entrykey}%
  \listxadd\blx@entries{\abx@field@entrykey}%
  \blx@bbl@addfield{entrytype}{#2}%
  \csuse\blx@bbl@data
  \blx@imc@iffieldundef{options}
    {}
    {\blx@bbl@fieldedef{options}{\expandonce\abx@field@options}}}

\DeclareFieldInputHandler{title}{\ifentrytype{article}{\def\NewValue{}}{}}
\makeatother

If the change is entirely unproblematic I might submit a pull request to get this into the biblatex core.