How to lookup the author's name from bib file, without causing the lookup to add a bibliography entry?

Question

To avoid/detect typos in author names I would like to use the bib file as a single source for names. Please see the following mwe:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{filecontents}{demo.bib}
    @book{articleA,
        author = {Author, A.},
        year = {2001},
        title = {Alpha},
    }
    @book{articleB,
        author = {Author, A.},
        year = {2002},
        title = {Bravo},
    }
\end{filecontents}
\usepackage[style=alphabetic]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{demo.bib}
\newcommand{\authorA}{\citeauthor{articleA}}
\newcommand{\authorAL}{\citename{articleA}{author}}
\begin{document}
The lookup seems to work fine using biblatex's \textbackslash citeauthor and/or 
\textbackslash citename commands.
The only problem I have is, that a lookup always adds an entry (here: 
[Aut01]) to the bibliography, eg.:
Hi, my name is \authorA.
Thus my question is:
How to lookup the author's name from bib file, without causing the lookup to
add a bibliography entry?
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Quick hack, wrap the \citeauthor in a refsection, see e.g. https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/645542/36296 — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Nov 16 '22 at 11:30
Wow, that was quick and easy, and acceptable in general, too. On the other hand the "quick hack" makes me think that there might exist a more elegant solution. — lAtExFaN, Nov 16 '22 at 11:36
Does this answer your question? How to omit one specific citation in \printbibliography, with BibLaTeX? — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Nov 16 '22 at 11:40
The "quick hack" was more a "this isn't what this environment if for, but is an easy solution" — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Nov 16 '22 at 11:41
@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz No, I don't think it answers my question: I tried to adept and get it to work, but I didn't succeed. — lAtExFaN, Nov 16 '22 at 13:30
Oh, I misunderstood you, and you me ;-) Sorry. I meant: Your "hack" works fine. I failed regarding the linked question/answer you provided in the comment. — lAtExFaN, Nov 16 '22 at 13:37
@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz -- This seems to be asking for your hack as an answer. — barbara beeton, Nov 16 '22 at 16:16
@barbarabeeton I'm still a bit confused. It is exactly the same approach as this answer https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/403928/36296 — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Nov 16 '22 at 16:17
@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz -- Oh, perhaps my confusion stems from the fact that I'm not a biblatex user, so didn't make the necessary connection. You're the boss here. — barbara beeton, Nov 16 '22 at 16:24
@barbarabeeton Maybe we just wait until the resident biblatex expert moewe can chime in. — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Nov 16 '22 at 16:29

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 01 '23 at 09:10

A clean way to reach what you need is to create a bibliography category for the citations you don't want to print among the references and then print the bibliography without that category (see this answer).

\documentclass{article}
\begin{filecontents}[overwrite]{demo.bib}
    @book{articleA,
        author = {Author, A.},
        year = {2001},
        title = {Alpha},
    }
    @book{articleB,
        author = {Buthor, B.},
        year = {2002},
        title = {Bravo},
    }
    @book{articleC,
        author = {Cuthor, C.},
        year = {2002},
        title = {Charlie},
    }
\end{filecontents}
\usepackage[style=alphabetic]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{demo.bib}
% see https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/111375/101651
\DeclareBibliographyCategory{nottocite}
\newcommand{\authorA}{\citeauthor{articleA}\addtocategory{nottocite}{articleA}}
\newcommand{\nameauthor}[1]{\citeauthor{#1}\addtocategory{nottocite}{#1}}
\begin{document}
Hi, my name is \authorA.
Or, more general \nameauthor{articleB}.
Pay attention: if you want them in bibliography, use \citeauthor{articleC}, not the previous commands.
\printbibliography[notcategory=nottocite]
\end{document}

How to lookup the author's name from bib file, without causing the lookup to add a bibliography entry?

1 Answers1