==The database==
The <span tag="MKIV" style="font-style:sans;">bibTEX</span> format is rather popular in the <span tag="MKIV" style="font-style:sans;">TEX</span> community and even with its shortcomings it will stay around for a while. Many publication websites can export and many tools are available to work with this database format. It is rather simple and looks a bit like <span tag="MKIV" style="font-style:sans;">Lua</span> tables. Unfortunately the content can be polluted with non-standardized <span tag="MKIV" style="font-style:sans;">TEX</span> commands which complicates pre- or postprocessing outside <span tag="MKIV" style="font-style:sans;">TEX</span>. In that sense a <span tag="MKIV" style="font-style:sans;">bibTEX</span> database is often not coded neutrally. Some limitations, like the use of commands to encode accented characters root in the <span tag="MKIV" style="font-style:sans;">ascii</span> world and can be bypassed by using <span tag="MKIV" style="font-style:sans;">utf</span> instead (as handled somewhat in <span tag="MKIV" style="font-style:sans;">LATEX</span> through extensions such as <tt style="color:rgb(0,102,102);font-size:100%;" >bibtex8</tt>).