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I am using biblatex with the following command: \usepackage[citestyle=numeric-comp,sorting=none]{biblatex}, and then add muptiple citations with, e.g. \cite{Lamont1985, Sorin1983}.

I need the bibliography to be sorted by appearance, so I'm using sorting=none. However, in this example Lamont will appear before Sorin, which doesn't make much sense (they are referenced simultaneously).

So, is it possible to sort the sources within the citation automatically?

texnic
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  • Please elaborate: Do you want to have Sorin1983 be listed because it was published before Lamont1985, or is there a different criterion that should govern the listing order within a group of citations? – Mico May 10 '12 at 11:09
  • Exactly as you write: if referenced for the first time together, Sorin1983 should go before Lamont1985 in the bibliography because it's published earlier. – texnic May 10 '12 at 12:09
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    If sorting by biblatex has been turned off with the sorting=none option, there does not appear to be a way of locally re-enabling sorting (by year of publication, or by any other criterion) of multiple entries in the citation command itself. There is an option named sortcites; when set to true it sorts the multiple entries by the sorting criterion set for the bibliography; however, you've disabled any sorting. Hence, it may be the case that you yourself will need to line up the multiple keys employed in a citation commands in the order you wish them to appear in the paper. – Mico May 10 '12 at 15:35
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    In fact, sorting=none doesn't turn off sorting, it sorts by an "order" index on the citekeys. The problem was that it wasn't considering keys in the same cite command as having the same order so they could never be tied on index and then sorted by something else (like year). This should be possible now - see answer below. – PLK May 11 '12 at 22:03
  • @texnic Some quick tests of the feature PLK added look good to me. If you haven't seen it already here's some information on 2.0 at c.t.t. – Audrey May 14 '12 at 14:52

1 Answers1

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This functionality has been added to biblatex 2.0/biber 1.0. Simply define a custom sort scheme as follows:

\DeclareSortingScheme{noneyear}{
 \sort{\citeorder}
 \sort{\field{year}}
}

and use the noneyear scheme as the argument to either the global sorting option or the sorting option to the \printbibliography command. See biblatex 2.0 manual section 4.5.3.

Cites in the same \cite*{} command now have the same "order" and so can be further sorted by any other field.

PLK
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  • Thank you. I believe I'll just wait for biblatex 2 to be released and will sort things manually for now. – texnic May 23 '12 at 08:14
  • Could you add what the sorting options are—spell out the usage? – jvriesem Jan 20 '16 at 02:38
  • It's best to look at the documentation on sort in the PDF manual for biblatex - it's all in there with examples. – PLK Jan 20 '16 at 07:30
  • See also the newer (biblatex 3.18+) \intciteorder sorting macro which can further distinguish the order of citations within the same \cite. – PLK Jul 27 '22 at 11:36