Posted by jvdh on Jul 28, 2017; 12:44pm
URL: https://discuss.asciidoctor.org/how-to-bypass-use-of-bibliography-tp5764.html

while it is nice to have integrated support for special document sections such as a bibliography I would prefer to bypass it (just as with the original asciidoc) since the available functionality seems rather constraining.

here's my problem:
The original asciidoc does linking/formatting of bibliography entries independently of whether they appear in a "true" [bibliography] or an ordinary section ("== MyBibliography", say). so the example from the manual:

_The Pragmatic Programmer_ <<prag>> should be required reading for
all developers.

[bibliography]
- [[[prag]]] Andy Hunt & Dave Thomas. The Pragmatic Programmer:
  From Journeyman to Master. Addison-Wesley. 1999.
- [[[seam]]] Dan Allen. Seam in Action. Manning Publications.
  2008.

works of course but

_The Pragmatic Programmer_ <<prag>> should be required reading for
all developers.

== References
- [[[prag]]] Andy Hunt & Dave Thomas. The Pragmatic Programmer:
  From Journeyman to Master. Addison-Wesley. 1999.
- [[[seam]]] Dan Allen. Seam in Action. Manning Publications.
  2008.

does not (it shows empty pairs of brackets "[]" rather than "[prag]").

question: is there any principal reason, why asciidoctor could not handle stuff in triple brackets [[[stuff]]] and <<stuff>> references always the same, i.e. independently of whether they belong to a dedicated [bibliography] section (and also not enforcing that it happens only in list entries)?

another observation: modifying the example above to:

_The Pragmatic Programmer_ <<1>> should be required reading for
all developers.

[bibliography]
- [[[1]]] Andy Hunt & Dave Thomas. The Pragmatic Programmer:
  From Journeyman to Master. Addison-Wesley. 1999.
- [[[2]]] Dan Allen. Seam in Action. Manning Publications.
  2008.

i.e. using numerical rather than text labels seemingly breaks formatting in the bibliography (the entries are labeled verbatim with [[[1]]] rather than with single brackets). what am I missing here?

any advice on these issues would be appreciated.

thx, joerg