How to wrap "sortname" field through biber sourcemapping?

Question

This issue is related to this other issue.

In my custom entrytype I use two alternate fields: author (names of persons) and usera (names of institutions).

In any pre-existing sorting template (e.g. nty, anyvt, etc.), the usera field must be handled as if it were an author/editor field.

So, without having/wanting to create a custom sorting template, I thought of using the sortname field, through sourcemapping.

% !TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode
% !TEX program = lualatex
% !BIB program = biber
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@customa{a,
  author = {Smith, John},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {2000},
}
@customa{b,
  usera = {M M},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {3000},
}
@customa{c,
  usera = {A Z},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {1000},
}
@customa{d,
  author = {Doe, Jane},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {4000},
}
\end{filecontents}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[style=authortitle]{biblatex}
  \addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\DeclareSourcemap{
  \maps{
    \map{
      \pertype{customa}
      \step[fieldsource=usera, match=\regexp{\A(.*)\Z}, final]
      \step[fieldset=sortname, fieldvalue={{$1}}]
    }
  }
}
\DeclareBibliographyDriver{customa}{%
  \usebibmacro{bibindex}%
  \usebibmacro{begentry}%
  \printfield{usera}%
  \printnames{author}%
  \newunit\newblock
  \usebibmacro{title}%
  \newunit\newblock
  \printdate%
  \usebibmacro{finentry}}
\begin{document}
\nocite{*}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

The sourcemapping code should be equivalent to the following .bib file:

@customa{a,
  author = {Smith, John},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {2000},
}
@customa{b,
  usera = {M M},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {3000},
  sortname = {{M M}},
}
@customa{c,
  usera = {A Z},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {1000},
  sortname = {{A Z}},
}
@customa{d,
  author = {Doe, Jane},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {4000},
}

but the ordering is not as expected.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 16 '23 at 20:17

Escaping the curly braces in a way that retains them for the sourcemap operation can be a bit painful. I found that the following works as expected.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[style=authortitle]{biblatex}
\DeclareSourcemap{
  \maps{
    \map{
      \pertype{customa}
      \step[fieldsource=usera, match=\regexp{\A(.*)\Z}, final]
      \step[fieldset=sortname, fieldvalue=\regexp{{$1}}]
    }
  }
}
\DeclareBibliographyDriver{customa}{%
  \usebibmacro{bibindex}%
  \usebibmacro{begentry}%
  \printfield{usera}%
  \printnames{author}%
  \newunit\newblock
  \usebibmacro{title}%
  \newunit\newblock
  \printdate%
  \usebibmacro{finentry}}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@customa{a,
  author = {Smith, John},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {2000},
}
@customa{b,
  usera = {M M},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {3000},
}
@customa{c,
  usera = {A Z},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {1000},
}
@customa{d,
  author = {Doe, Jane},
  title  = {Title},
  date   = {4000},
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\begin{document}
\nocite{*}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

How to wrap "sortname" field through biber sourcemapping?

1 Answers1