lookbib(1) General Commands Manual lookbib(1)

# [Name](#Name)

lookbib - search bibliographic databases interactively

# [Synopsis](#Synopsis)

`lookbib` \[**-i string**] \[**-t n**] *file* ...

`lookbib` **--help**

`lookbib` **-v**

`lookbib` **--version**

# [Description](#Description)

*lookbib* writes a prompt to the standard error stream (unless the standard input stream is not a terminal), reads from the standard input a line containing a set of keywords, searches each bibliographic database *file* for references containing those keywords, writes any references found to the standard output stream, and repeats this process until the end of input. For each database *file* to be searched, if an index file*.i* created by [*indxbib*(1)](/man/os/groff/indxbib.1) exists, then it will be searched instead; each index can cover multiple databases.

# [Options](#Options)

**--help** displays a usage message, while **-v** and **--version** show version information; all exit afterward.

[**-i string**](#i)

When searching files for which no index exists, ignore the contents of fields whose names are in *string*.

[**-t n**](#t)

Require only the first *n* characters of keys to be given. The default is 6.

# [Exit status](#Exit_status)

*lookbib* exits with status **0** on successful operation, status **2** if the program cannot interpret its command-line arguments, and status **1** if it encounters an error during operation.

# [Files](#Files)

file*.i*

Index files.

# [See also](#See_also)

“Some Applications of Inverted Indexes on the Unix System”, by M. E. Lesk, 1978, AT&T Bell Laboratories Computing Science Technical Report No. 69.

[*refer*(1)](/man/os/groff/refer.1), [*lkbib*(1)](/man/os/groff/lkbib.1), [*indxbib*(1)](/man/os/groff/indxbib.1)

2026-10-26 groff 1.24.2

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Document: lookbib(1) from groff 1.24.2-r2 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/groff.git