[biblio] Bug in acm.bst

[Karl Berry]

Hi Peter,

Oren looked into the situation and sent this reply (and gave the ok to
post it here).

Best,
Karl

--------------------
From: Oren Patashnik

I saw in biblio at tug.org that Peter Selinger had asked to fix an
alleged bug in the ACM bibliography style acm.bst.  Please don't do
that, as the "bug" is actually a feature.  Here's an explanation:

It's completely clear from looking at both acm.bst and btxbst.doc (the
template file for the standard styles and for acm.bst) that the
behavior Peter describes is intended.  To review, Peter says:

  The style inserts a comma before "and" in a list of authors,
  even if there are only two authors. Example: [...]

    Meter, R. V., and Horsman, C.

So it's the comma after the "V." that's in question.

The reason why acm.bst inserts this comma probably requires more
explanation than is appropriate for this list -- short answer: it's
due to the inverted-order name "Meter, R. V." -- but suffice it to say
that *The Chicago Manual of Style* (page 531 of the 14th edition, the
one I have on my shelf) also recommends the analogous comma, albeit in
a slightly different style:

   TWO AUTHORS
   15.85 [...] In the bibliography the name of the first author is
   inverted, the second is given in its natural order, and the
   conjunction joining the two names is preceded by a comma:

     Unwin, Liam P., and Joseph Galloway

The comma after the "P." here is analogous to the comma after the "V."
that Peter objects to in his acm.bst example.

Bottom line: As I say, the acm.bst comma is a feature, not a bug.

-- Oren