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How do I cite software in LaTeX?

How do I cite software in LaTeX?

I'm currently writing a 15 ECTS (quarter years worth) report as a part of my two-year masters in computer science, and I'm using LaTeX with BibTeX.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 220
Total answers/comments: 2
bert [Entry]

"This is driven by the format of the citation required by the institution or journal.

For example, the APA has guidelines for computer software references and, if these are to be followed, then the output from LaTeX needs to produce the appropriate format. An example they give (reference entry 92 for computer software) is

Miller, M. E. (1993). The Interactive Tester (Version 4.0) [Computer
software]. Westminster, CA: Psytek Services.

but there are a lot of precise rules for different categories of software. In many cases the software is not put into a reference entry but just mentioned in the text with its proper name and version number (see Publication Manual of the American Psychological Society (5th edition, 2001), p.280)

Another mailing list example is at http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Comp/comp.text.tex/2007-10/msg01823.html:

Software with a manual:

@BOOK{lapack99,
AUTHOR = {Anderson, E. and Bai, Z. and Bischof, C. and
Blackford, S. and Demmel, J. and Dongarra, J. and
Du Croz, J. and Greenbaum, A. and Hammarling, S. and
McKenney, A. and Sorensen, D.},
TITLE = {{LAPACK} Users' Guide},
EDITION = {Third},
PUBLISHER = {Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics},
YEAR = {1999},
ADDRESS = {Philadelphia, PA},
ISBN = {0-89871-447-8 (paperback)}
}

@Article{frigo-johnson05,
author = {Matteo Frigo and Steven G. Johnson},
title = {The design and implementation of {FFTW3}},
journal = pieee,
year = 2005,
volume = 93,
number = 2,
pages = {216--231},
month = {February}
}


Free software with no published manual:

@Misc{popinet00,
author = {Stephane Popinet},
title = {{GTS}: {GNU} {Triangulated} {Surface} library},
howpublished = {\url{http://gts.sourceforge.net/}},
year = {2000--2004}
}"
bert [Entry]

"I use the BibTeX @misc format, and diddle the fields until I'm happy with the result. You need enough info for the read to unambiguously know which version you're using and where to get it.

So I put the version in the note, the release data in the year and month fields, software name in title, the author or project name in author, and try to include a url.

But then, I've never faced an stylesheet that constrained me in this: editors simply don't expect you to cite a piece of code..."