`tufte-book` class and `IEEEtran` bibliography style erroring with "Paragraph ended before \BR@c@bibitem was complete."

Question

I am getting the following error:

(build/proposal-tufte-mwe.bbl
Runaway argument?
\BIBentryALTinterwordspacing S.~Koenig and M.~Likhachev, ``Fast repla\ETC.
! Paragraph ended before \BR@c@bibitem was complete.
<to be read again>
                   \par
l.30
?

Search results indicate this can be caused by % characters in URLs, but that's not the case for me.

Here is a minimal example:

\documentclass{tufte-book}
\usepackage{natbib}
\setcitestyle{square, numbers}  % \documentclass{tufte-book}' usesnatbib` too. Avoid option clash
\begin{filecontents}{minimal-references.bib}
@article{koenigFastReplanningNavigation2005,
  title = {Fast Replanning for Navigation in Unknown Terrain},
  author = {Koenig, S. and Likhachev, M.},
  date = {2005-06},
  journaltitle = {IEEE Transactions on Robotics},
  doi = {10.1109/TRO.2004.838026},
  url = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1435479/},
}
\end{filecontents}
\begin{document}
\mainmatter
\section{Related Work}
Such is the case in the heuristic incremental search for a navigation algorithm~\cite{koenigFastReplanningNavigation2005}.
% \backmatter
% debug bib
% \show\bibitem
% \show\BR@c@bibitem
\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{minimal-references}
\end{document}

When I hit enter to "ignore" the Runaway argument? error, I see the following:

! Package natbib Error: Bibliography not compatible with author-year citations.

which surprises me, given the line \setcitestyle{square, numbers}.

I am not sure if this is helpful, but I did try to debug:

$ latexdef --class tufte-book  --find \BR@b@bibitem
\BR@b@bibitem first defined in "/usr/local/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/natbib/bibentry.sty".
\BR@b@bibitem:
macro:->@protected@testopt \BR@b@bibitem \BR@b@bibitem {}
\BR@b@bibitem first defined in "/usr/local/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/natbib/bibentry.sty".
\BR@b@bibitem:
\long macro:[#1]#2->\ifthenelse {\isempty {#1}}{\BR@bibitem {#2}}{\BR@bibitem [#1]{#2}}\BR@c@bibitem {#2}

I am not tied to using natbib, and perhaps I should use the nobib option to disable it in tufte-book.

I would like an explanation for the error, and a recommendation for a working configuration.

Simon Dispa · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-08T23:19:49.467

You will save a lot of time dealing with tufte-book if you use biber (and the option nobib).

I added examples from biblatex-examples.bib included in the distribution.

% !TeX TS-program = pdflatex % <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<   
\documentclass[nobib]{tufte-book}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber,
language=auto,
style=ieee,
natbib=true]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{minimal-references.bib}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
\begin{filecontents}[overwrite]{minimal-references.bib}
    @article{koenigFastReplanningNavigation2005,
        title = {Fast Replanning for Navigation in Unknown Terrain},
        author = {Koenig, S. and Likhachev, M.},
        date = {2005-06},
        journaltitle = {IEEE Transactions on Robotics}, 
        url = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1435479/},
         doi = {10.1109/TRO.2004.838026},
    }
\end{filecontents}
\begin{document}
    \mainmatter
\section{Related Work}
Such is the case in the heuristic incremental search for a navigation algorithm~\cite{koenigFastReplanningNavigation2005}.

\begin{itemize}
    \item \cite{kastenholz}
    \item \cite{sigfridsson}
    \item \cite{ctan}
    \item \cite{markey} 
\end{itemize}   


%   \bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
%   \bibliography{minimal-references}
\printbibliography


\end{document}

If running xelatex or lualatex start as follows to avoid letter spacing errors.

\documentclass[nobib,nofonts]{tufte-book}
%%https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/200722/xetex-seems-to-break-headers-in-tufte-handout

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Minion Pro}
\newcommand{\textls}[2][5]{%
    \begingroup\addfontfeatures{LetterSpace=#1}#2\endgroup
}
\renewcommand{\allcapsspacing}[1]{\textls[15]{#1}}
\renewcommand{\smallcapsspacing}[1]{\textls[10]{#1}}
\renewcommand{\allcaps}[1]{\textls[15]{\MakeTextUppercase{#1}}}
\renewcommand{\smallcaps}[1]{\smallcapsspacing{\scshape\MakeTextLowercase{#1}}}
\renewcommand{\textsc}[1]{\smallcapsspacing{\textsmallcaps{#1}}}
%%************************************************************************************

Thanks, can you explain why biber is less problematic than natbib? — Gus, Apr 08 '21 at 23:11
@Gus Because biblatex + biber works! while while natbib keeps throwing errors and wasting your time. In general terms both are good but I use biblatex because is updated with the APA style I need. — Simon Dispa, Apr 08 '21 at 23:51

`tufte-book` class and `IEEEtran` bibliography style erroring with "Paragraph ended before \BR@c@bibitem was complete."

1 Answers1