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How can i use BibTex to cite a software?

Asked 7 years, 3 months ago Modified 2 years, 4 months ago Viewed 31k times

I want to cite a software in the following format

21 author name, software name, version number, year, available at url pointing to the
software

in BibTex....plz help...

bibtex citing

Share Improve this question edited Jul 10, 2015 at 7:28 asked Jul 10, 2015 at 7:13
Follow Mico SIMHA
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 1 Welcome to TeX.SE! The title of your posting mentions BibTeX, yet you've tagged both "bibtex" and
"biblatex", which are two different systems. Please advise which system you intend to use. If it's
BibTeX, please also indicate which bibliography style you employ. – Mico Jul 10, 2015 at 7:21

i use bibtex and bibliography style is IEEEtran.sty – SIMHA Jul 10, 2015 at 7:24

Bibliography style files end in .bst , not .sty . What's the argument of the
\bibliographystyle instruction in your document? – Mico Jul 10, 2015 at 7:27

1 @Mico I would rather say that BibTeX and the biblatex package are intrinsically different. The
former is a program that processes a .bib file, when the latter is a LaTeX package. One can thus
use both together (even if biber is often recommended over BibTeX - ymmv though). Whatever it be,
the bibliographic style is however an important information to provide. – ebosi Jun 9, 2017 at 20:02

@ebo - I used the term "system" in a deliberately not very precise way. (I am aware that BibTeX is
an executable program and that biblatex is a LaTeX package...) The purpose of my comment
was purely to elicit more usable information from the OP. I'm afraid I wasn't particularly successful,
though. :-( – Mico Jun 9, 2017 at 20:15

2 Answers Sorted by: Highest score (default)

This answer is an adapted copy of the original one provided by Pascal on SuperUser. It is copied here as a
community wiki for archival purpose.

26
If you use the package biblatex , you can thus use the @software entry- type in your
database:

@software{hadoop,
author = {{Apache Software Foundation}},
title = {Hadoop},
url = {https://hadoop.apache.org},
version = {0.20.2},
date = {2010-02-19},
}

Produces

Apache Software Foundation. Hadoop. Version 0.20.2. Feb. 19, 2010. URL:
https://hadoop.apache.org

Share Improve this answer answered Jun 9, 2017 at 19:56 community wiki
Follow ebosi
 1 For some reason I'm getting Package biblatex Warning: No driver for entry type
'software'. Using fallback driver on input line 191. ? It seems to be outputting the
correct output but still giving a warning – JMY1000 Nov 30, 2019 at 4:45

@JMY1000 Thanks for your comment. I suggest you ask a separate question if you want help on
you issue (potentially back-referencing to this question), so that it can benefit others too. – ebosi
Dec 1, 2019 at 19:00

Unfortunately, this entry type seems to be ignored when used for separated sections of the
bibliography (using the keywords trick). (with biblatex 2017/11/21 v3.9) – kebs Feb 12, 2020 at
14:42

How about

15 @misc{blabla,
author = {author name},
title = {software name (version ...)},
year = {year},
url = {url},
}

I think that would be completely valid. You could also use the note field to add information.

Share Improve this answer edited Jun 6, 2020 at 19:13 answered Jul 13, 2015 at 12:20
Follow LnZ Thomas Weise
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