RefDB Download

There are many ways to arrive at a working RefDB installation. Please pick the most suitable way from the offerings below.

Source distributions

If you want to build the current version of RefDB from the sources, please grab the latest source code release refdb-0.9.9.tar.gz along with the Perlmod package RefDB-perlmod-1.2.tar.gz. If you intend to write custom Perl clients, please grab the RefDB-perlclient-1.18 archive as well. If you want to set up the SRU service, you'll also need the RefDB-perlsru-0.7 package. As an Emacs user you may also be interested in the refdb-elisp archive which implements a graphical frontend for RefDB. Finally, there is a refdb-publist add-on which allows to generate publication lists for your CV or for department reports from the references stored in your database.

There is also a meta-archive called refdb-starterkit-0.9.7.tar.gz containing the RefDB sources (currently outdated) as well as all required library sources and Perl modules. You'll get the following archives along with some terse build instructions:

• Text-Iconv-1.4: Perl module for character encoding conversions
• MARC-Charset-0.9.5: Perl module required for MARC import
• MARC-Record-1.38: Perl module required for MARC import
• RefDB-perlmod-0.4.1: RefDB support Perl modules
• XML-Parser-2.34: Perl module required for Pubmed XML import
• Term-Clui-1.35.tar.gz: Perl module for command-line interfaces
• btparse-0.34: BibTeX parser library, required for BibTeX import
• expat-2.0.0: XML parser library
• libdbi-0.8.1: database abstraction library
• libdbi-drivers-0.8.1: drivers for the database abstraction layer
• refdb-0.9.7: the RefDB package proper
• RefDBClient-Client-1.13: Perl module for writing custom clients
• sqlite-3.3.6: the embedded SQL engine library

Binaries

There is a selection of binary releases, but they may lag behind the source release until the package maintainers find some time to update the packages. Currently there are binary releases for Windows/Cygwin, Linux (RPM), Solaris (RPM), all available at the Sourceforge RefDB project page.

Debian packages

Debian repositories for RefDB deb packages are available at refdb.sourceforge.net. Instructions for installing from them are available here.

FreeBSD port

RefDB is in the FreeBSD ports collection as part of the textproc category. See here for additional information about this port.

Prereleases

If you don't want to fiddle with Subversion (see the next section) but would like to help testing, consider using the latest prerelease. These archives can be installed just like regular releases, but they may not be as well-tested as these. However, you'll get bugfixes and new features that are otherwise only in the Subversion version. The latest prerelease, if any, is always right here.

Subversion

Like many other open source projects, RefDB source code is controlled using Subversion. Read-only access to the repository is available via the subversion client, or via a web browser.

The command-line client exists for most platforms. Windows users may find the Cygwin version of the client most useful, but there is also a native port.

If you prefer web access, go straight to the RefDB subversion repository.

Read-only access is available for everyone, only write access is limited to members of the project. To check out the sources using the command-line subversion client, run something like:

svn co https://refdb.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/refdb/module/trunk module

Replace module with the name of the module you'd like to retrieve. E.g.,

svn co https://refdb.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/refdb/refdb/trunk refdb

will retrieve the main line of development (the trunk) of RefDB proper and put a working copy into the subdirectory refdb/ (which will be created if it doesn't exist yet). Other modules include perlmod, elisp, and makestyle. Check out branches or tagged versions with commands like these:

svn co https://refdb.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/refdb/refdb/branches/back-to-a-1-branch refdb-a1-branch

svn co https://refdb.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/refdb/refdb/tags/Release-0.9.7 refdb-0.9.7

Along the same lines you can retrieve a specific revision:

svn co --revision 324 https://refdb.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/refdb/refdb/trunk refdb-324

Subversion keeps track of the server where you initially got the project sources from. If you want to update the sources at a later time, you just cd into the project directory and run the command:

svn update

For more information and downloads of subversion, see http://subversion.tigris.org

Subversion made easy

There is a set of scripts that can checkout a RefDB source tree, build, and install it on your system. This is the most convenient way to keep a Subversion version of RefDB up to date. Unpack the archive, change into the top-level directory and run

./configure & make & make install

Next you should run

refdb-svn -h

to display help about configuring the tool properly and about running the tool.