[texhax] sort bibtex entries from same author by year ignoringco-authors

[Philip G. Ratcliffe]

> I'm sure this problem is not too difficult for someone with more
> than my marginal LaTeX experience. I am using bibtex with the
> standard style abbrv.bst, which sorts the entries alphabetically
> by author name. If there's a publication by two authors called
> 'A' and 'B' as well as a publication by authors 'A' and 'C',
> bibtex automatically puts the entry (A,B) before the entry (A,C).
> But I would like it to always sort entries of the same first
> author (here A) chronologically.
>
> Is there a bibtex style, similar to abbrv.bst, that does this? Or
> a package I could use? Or could anyone tell me how to modify the
> style file to change the sorting rule?

I'm not sure if there's an existing BibTeX style that does this - and there
are too many to sift through.  However, if you edit abbrv.bst and locate the
lines defining FUNCTION {sort.format.names}, they should be 924-944, and
modify it to

FUNCTION {sort.format.names}
{ #1 "{vv{ } }{ll{ }}{  f{ }}{  jj{ }}" format.name$ sortify }

BE SURE TO RENAME the file, say to abbrv-mod.bst or something totally
different.

This will hopefully get what you want (it's a crude hack but I tested it on
my over 5k entry bib file).

Cordialmente,  Phil Ratcliffe