sref-db

A command-line tool for managing academic references using DOIs and the CrossRef API.

Overview

sref-db is a simple reference manager that stores bibliographic information in JSON format. It queries the CrossRef API to fetch metadata for academic papers and stores them locally for easy access and citation formatting.

Installation

make install

This will:

• Build the sref-db binary
• Create configuration directory at ~/.config/sref/
• Install the binary to /usr/local/bin/

Before using the tool, add your email to ~/.config/sref/email.conf. This is part of the "polite" guidelines for the API:

echo "your.email@example.com" > ~/.config/sref/email.conf

Usage

Add a reference

sref-db add -doi "10.1007/s11104-024-06671-1"

With logging:

sref-db add -doi "10.1007/s11104-024-06671-1" -o log.txt

Maybe want to add a lot of DOIs from a file:

cat dois.txt | xargs -I '{}' sref-db add -doi '{}' -o log.txt

Read references

Print all references:

sref-db read

Print a specific reference:

sref-db read -doi "10.1007/s11104-024-06671-1"

Delete a reference

sref-db del -doi "10.1007/s11104-024-06671-1"

Custom database file

By default, references are stored in ~/.config/sref/references.json. Use the -f flag to specify a different file:

sref-db add -f custom.json -doi "10.1007/s11104-024-06671-1"

Scripts

The scripts/ directory contains helper utilities:

• json2apa - Bash script for APA formatting with jq. Not real APA, but kind of

Uninstall

make uninstall

This removes the binary and configuration directory.

Requirements

• Go 1.23.4 or later

License

This project uses the crossrefapi library from Caltech Library.