Enclosing issue number in parentheses

Question

In my bibliography, the volume number and issue number is currently printed as "volume.issue"

I want to change that to "volume(issue)", e.g., "35(5)".

Would this be something to do with \renewbibmacro?

Answer 1

Yes -- but one can also use \xpatchbibmacro (from the xpatch package) for partial redefinitions.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{biblatex}

\usepackage{xpatch}

% No dot before number of articles
\xpatchbibmacro{volume+number+eid}{%
  \setunit*{\adddot}%
}{%
}{}{}

% Number of articles in parentheses
\DeclareFieldFormat[article]{number}{\mkbibparens{#1}}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{Bli74,
  author = {Blinder, Alan S.},
  year = {1974},
  title = {The economics of brushing teeth},
  shorttitle = {Brushing teeth},
  journaltitle = {Journal of Political Economy},
  volume = {82},
  number = {4},
  pages = {887--891},
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\nocite{*}

\begin{document}

\printbibliography

\end{document}

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