using both multibbl and natbib?

Question

In a book I have multiple bibliographies (several per chapter) and, with the help of Dai Bowen in a previous question, I successfully overcame that by using multibbl package but I now face an incompatibility with natbib.

Natbib allows me to properly format the text notably with the absolutely necessary [longnamesfirst] option and \citep, \citealp, \citeauthor, \citeyear, etc. commands.

Is there a workaround so these packages coexist or any idea how I could do otherwise?

Answer 1

The short answer is no, the packages will not naturally coexist multibbl and natbib do various redefining of internal citation commands which are incompatible.

The sensible answer is that for multiple bibliographies, using biblatex will probably be much easier, as it can easily handle multiple bibliographies (e.g. this answer) and (with the natbib package option) will define all the commands like \citeauthor etc. and therefore has the capabilities of both multibbl and natbib in a single package.

The longer answer is that it does seem to be possible to get elements of the two packages working together, it's hardly elegant and unfortunately I haven't found a way to get longnamesfirst working so far. The main incompatibility is in their redefinition of \@citex, multibbl redefines it as

\def\@citex[#1]#2#3{%
  \let\@citea\@empty
  \@cite{\@for\@citeb:=#3\do
    {\@citea\def\@citea{,\penalty\@m\ }%
     \edef\@citeb{\expandafter\@firstofone\@citeb\@empty}%
     \@ifundefined{#2@auxfile}{}{\expandafter\immediate%
        \write\csname #2@auxfile\endcsname{\string\citation{\@citeb}}}%
     \@ifundefined{b@\@citeb}{\mbox{\reset@font\bfseries ?}%
       \G@refundefinedtrue
       \@latex@warning
         {Citation `\@citeb' on page \thepage \space undefined}}%
       {\hbox{\csname b@\@citeb\endcsname}}}}{#1}}

which inserts an extra argument and swaps the default

\if@filesw\immediate\write\@auxout{\string\citation{\@citeb}}\fi

for

\@ifundefined{#2@auxfile}{}{\expandafter\immediate%
\write\csname #2@auxfile\endcsname{\string\citation{\@citeb}}}%

while natbib does \let\@citex\NAT@citex or \let\@citex\NAT@citexnum depending on package options. We therefore need to insert the extra .aux file name argument into both of these. The \citeyear, \citeauthor, and commands in natbib don't rely on \@citex but instead have their own call which must also be adjusted to accept two arguments, the first being the .aux file name and the second the citation key.

Packaged together into one file, some of the necessary changes seem to be

\begin{filecontents}{bibexample.bib}
@book{goossens93,
    author    = "Michel Goossens and Frank Mittelbach and Alexander Samarin",
    title     = "The LaTeX Companion",
    year      = "1993",
    publisher = "Addison-Wesley",
    address   = "Reading, Massachusetts"
}
\end{filecontents}

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{multibbl}
\newbibliography{biblio1}
\usepackage[longnamesfirst]{natbib}

\makeatletter

\def\NAT@citex%
  [#1][#2]#3#4{\let\@citea\@empty
  \@cite{\let\NAT@nm\@empty\let\NAT@year\@empty
    \@for\@citeb:=#4\do
    {\edef\@citeb{\expandafter\@firstofone\@citeb}%
    \@ifundefined{#3@auxfile}{}{\expandafter\immediate%
    \write\csname #3@auxfile\endcsname{\string\citation{\@citeb}}}%
     \@ifundefined{b@\@citeb\@extra@b@citeb}{\@citea%
       {\reset@font\bfseries ?}\NAT@citeundefined
                 \PackageWarning{natbib}%
       {Citation `\@citeb' on page \thepage \space undefined}}%
     {\hyper@natlinkstart{\@citeb}%
     \let\NAT@last@nm=\NAT@nm\let\NAT@last@yr=\NAT@year
     \NAT@parse{\@citeb}\ifNAT@full\let\NAT@nm\NAT@all@names\else
       \let\NAT@nm\NAT@name\fi
     \ifNAT@swa
       \ifx\NAT@last@nm\NAT@nm\NAT@yrsep
          \ifx\NAT@last@yr\NAT@year \NAT@exlab\else\unskip\ \NAT@date\fi
       \else\@citea{\NAT@nm}\NAT@aysep
       \ \NAT@date \fi \def\@citea{\NAT@sep\ }%
     \else
       \ifx\NAT@last@nm\NAT@nm\NAT@yrsep\ifx\NAT@last@yr\NAT@year
         \NAT@exlab\else \unskip\ \NAT@date\fi
       \else\@citea{\NAT@nm}\ \NAT@open\if\relax#1\relax\else#1\ \fi
         \NAT@date\fi
       \def\@citea{\NAT@close\NAT@sep\ }%
     \fi \hyper@natlinkend
     }}\ifNAT@swa\else\if\relax#2\relax\else\NAT@cmt\ #2\fi
     \NAT@close\fi}{#1}{#2}}

\def\NAT@citexnum[#1][#2]#3#4{\let\@citea\@empty
  \@cite{\@for\@citeb:=#4\do
    {\@citea\def\@citea{\NAT@sep\penalty\@m\NAT@space}%
     \edef\@citeb{\expandafter\@firstofone\@citeb}%
    \@ifundefined{#3@auxfile}{}{\expandafter\immediate%
    \write\csname #3@auxfile\endcsname{\string\citation{\@citeb}}}%A
     \@ifundefined{b@\@citeb\@extra@b@citeb}{%
{\reset@font\bfseries?}
        \NAT@citeundefined\PackageWarning{natbib}%
       {Citation `\@citeb' on page \thepage \space undefined}}%
     {\NAT@parse{\@citeb}\hbox{\hyper@natlinkstart{\@citeb}%
      \NAT@num\hyper@natlinkend}}}}{#1}{#2}}

\renewcommand\citeauthor[2]{%
\@ifundefined{#1@auxfile}{}{\expandafter\immediate%
\write\csname #1@auxfile\endcsname{\string\citation{#2}}}%
     \@ifundefined{b@#2\@extra@b@citeb}{%
       {\reset@font\bfseries ?}\NAT@citeundefined
            \PackageWarning{natbib}%
       {Citation `#2' on page \thepage \space undefined}}%
       {\NAT@parse{#2}\ifx\NAT@noname\NAT@name
         {\reset@font\bfseries(author?)}\PackageWarning{natbib}
           {Author undefined for citation `#2'
             \MessageBreak
            on page \thepage}\else
         {\hyper@natlinkstart{#2}\NAT@name\hyper@natlinkend}\fi}%
}

\renewcommand\citeyear[2]{%
\@ifundefined{#1@auxfile}{}{\expandafter\immediate%
\write\csname #1@auxfile\endcsname{\string\citation{#2}}}%
     \@ifundefined{b@#2\@extra@b@citeb}{%
       {\reset@font\bfseries ?}\NAT@citeundefined
            \PackageWarning{natbib}%
       {Citation `#2' on page \thepage \space undefined}}%
       {\NAT@parse{#2}\if\relax\NAT@date\relax
         {\reset@font\bfseries(year?)}\PackageWarning{natbib}
           {Year undefined for citation `#2'
             \MessageBreak
            on page \thepage}\else
         {\hyper@natlinkstart{#2}\NAT@date\hyper@natlinkend}\fi}%
}

\renewcommand\citefullauthor[2]{%
\@ifundefined{#1@auxfile}{}{\expandafter\immediate%
\write\csname #1@auxfile\endcsname{\string\citation{#2}}}%
     \@ifundefined{b@#2\@extra@b@citeb}{%
       {\reset@font\bfseries ?}\NAT@citeundefined
            \PackageWarning{natbib}%
       {Citation `#2' on page \thepage \space undefined}}%
       {\NAT@parse{#2}\ifx\NAT@noname\NAT@all@names
         {\reset@font\bfseries(author?)}\PackageWarning{natbib}
           {Author undefined for citation `#2'
             \MessageBreak
            on page \thepage}\else
         {\hyper@natlinkstart{#2}\NAT@all@names\hyper@natlinkend}\fi}%
}

\makeatother

\begin{document}
\cite{biblio1}{goossens93}

\citet{biblio1}{goossens93}

\citep{biblio1}{goossens93}

\citealp{biblio1}{goossens93}

\citeauthor{biblio1}{goossens93}

\citeyear{biblio1}{goossens93}

\citefullauthor{biblio1}{goossens93}

\bibliographystyle{biblio1}{plainnat}
\bibliography{biblio1}{bibexample}{References}

\end{document}

Answer 2

Multibbl and natbib do no coexist. Biblatex does not allow a custom style.

So I finally opted for chapterbib which best meets my main requirements (multiple bibliographies, using natbib and custom styles) even if it also has some drawbacks (I would notably have prefered a bibliography “tag” as Multibbl or two tags \begin{refsection} and \end{refsection} as Biblatex)

Edit: I have just found out that Chapterbib also allows tags (\begin{cbunit} and \end{cbunit}) instead of \include so it's a good choice