Cfrgtkky

Before I updated my TexLive2018 (Win7-64bit, Texstudio) 5 minutes ago, the following code compiled fine:

documentclass[12pt]{article}



usepackage{filecontents}



begin{filecontents}{bib.bib}

@book{authorA20,

    author = {Author, A.},

    translator = {Translator, A.},

    title = {These and that},

    subtitle = {Nothing special},

    volume = 1,

    location = {Here and there},

    publisher = {Who knows},

    year = {2020},

    isbn = {978-0-000-00000-2},

}

@book{buthorB22,

    author = {authorSn, authorGivenname},

    shorthand = {volTwoShorthand},

    translator = {volTwoTranslator},

    title = {volTwoTitle},

    subtitle = {volTwoSubtitle},

    volume = {volTwoNumber},

    location = {volTwoLocation},

    publisher = {volTwoPublisher},

    year = {volTwoYear},

    isbn = {volTwoIsbn},

}

end{filecontents}



usepackage{xstring} %<- provides StrLeft/-Right (s. below)

newcommand{authorSn}{Buthor}

newcommand{authorGivenname}{B.}

newcommand{volTwoTranslator}{Translator, B.}

newcommand{volTwoTitle}{These and that}

newcommand{volTwoSubtitle}{Nothing special}

newcommand{volTwoNumber}{2}

newcommand{volTwoLocation}{Here and there}

newcommand{volTwoPublisher}{Who knows}

newcommand{volTwoYear}{2022}

newcommand{volTwoShorthand}{StrLeft{authorSn}{3}%

    StrRight{volTwoYear}{2}}



newcommand{volTwoIsbn}{978-1-111-11111-1}



usepackage[style=alphabetic]{biblatex}

addbibresource{bib.bib}



begin{document}



Wow cite{authorA20}!



Crazy cite{buthorB22}!



printbibliography



end{document}

After the update, biber 2.12 reproducible segfaults. I don't know exactly what biber version I've used before (my previous updated was some time ago, in this summer).

The problematic field seems to be author = {authorSn, authorGivenname}. If I replace this field using hard coded values, e.g. author = {Bauthor, B.} the compilation succeeds, with obvious - in my opinion harmless - warnings.

Running biber --tool --validate-datamodel bib.bib SEGV, too.

Interestingly on my machine I can reproduce the segfault (I don't get any error report, Biber just dies and does not write a .bbl) in about 70% of runs, while the other 30% compile just fine (with slightly weird data in the .bbl: family={volTwoTranslator}, familyi={rbibinitperiod}).

You can and should probably report this at https://github.com/plk/biber/issues (Stackexchange is not a bug tracker), but it might turn out that there is no good way to solve this in Biber. Biber relies on the Perl module Text::BibTeX, which in term delegates its work to the C library btparse. Catching errors (especially segfaults) from that module sometimes proves a little difficult.

In this case it seems that the code to parse names, in particular the code that deals with name initials, is ill-equipped to deal with a name that consists only of macros. Remember that Biber does not know LaTeX, which means that it does not expand/unpack macro definitions (except in very specific, hard-coded cases). At the same time Biber needs access to the proper string values of fields to do its job: Sorting can only be performed as expected if Biber really knows the expansion of the macros and not just their name. And – this is the issue here – initials can only be generated from names if their string values are known.

There are two workaround that I can think of.

1. 
   

   As mentioned by gusbrs in the comments already, use relax in the author field: relax can be used as a marker for BibTeX/btparse in names to tell it to parse the current bit of the name differently.

   
   
   

   author = {relaxauthorSn, relaxauthorGivenname},
   
   

   
   
   

   compiles to

   
   
   

   family={relaxauthorSn},
   
   familyi={\bibinitperiod},
   
   given={relaxauthorGivenname},
   
   giveni={\bibinitperiod}}}%
   
   

   
   
   

   which is still wrong, but at least does not let Biber die.

   
   
   

   BibTeX treats groups in names that start with a control sequence as one character, which means that {'E}cole would be abbreviated as {'E} and not as {'} or {E} or something else. In BibTeX this allows for the neat trick {relax Th}omas to get "Th." as name initial (this no longer works in Biber).

   
   


2. 
   

   You can turn off the calculation of initials by giving them yourself with the extended name format.

   
   
   

   author = {family={authorSn}, given={authorGivenname},
   
             family-i={authorSn}, given-i={authorGivenname}},
   
   

   
   
   

   compiles to

   
   
   

   family={authorSn},
   
   familyi={authorSnbibinitperiod},
   
   given={authorGivenname},
   
   giveni={authorGivennamebibinitperiod}}}%
   
   

   
   
   

   still not great, but better than nothing.

   
   
   

   Of course you could give the real initials explicitly if you determine them yourself beforehand.