import_bibtex

Instructions

Implementation Reference

• src/zotero_mcp/server.py:145-149 (handler)

  The tool registration and entry point for importing BibTeX.

  @mcp.tool(description="Import BibTeX entries into Zotero")
  def import_bibtex(bibtex: str, collection_key: str = "") -> str:
      """Parse BibTeX string and create items in Zotero."""
      keys = _get_client().import_bibtex(bibtex, collection_key)
      return json.dumps({"created_keys": keys, "count": len(keys)}, ensure_ascii=False)

• src/zotero_mcp/client.py:254-267 (handler)

  The business logic implementation for processing BibTeX string and creating items.

  def import_bibtex(self, bibtex: str, collection_key: str = "") -> list[str]:
      """Import BibTeX entries. Returns list of created item keys."""
      entries = self._parse_bibtex(bibtex)
      keys = []
      for entry in entries:
          if collection_key:
              entry["collections"] = [collection_key]
          resp = self.zot.create_items([entry])
          created = resp.get("successful", resp.get("success", {}))
          if created:
              val = list(created.values())[0] if isinstance(created, dict) else created[0]
              key = val.get("key", val.get("data", {}).get("key", "")) if isinstance(val, dict) else str(val)
              keys.append(key)
      return keys

• src/zotero_mcp/client.py:426-493 (helper)

  The helper function that performs the actual regex-based parsing of the BibTeX input string.

  @staticmethod
  def _parse_bibtex(bibtex: str) -> list[dict]:
      """Parse BibTeX string into Zotero item dicts."""
      entries = []
      pattern = r"@(\w+)\{([^,]*),(.*?)\n\}"
      for match in re.finditer(pattern, bibtex, re.DOTALL):
          bib_type = match.group(1).lower()
          body = match.group(3)
  
          type_map = {
              "article": "journalArticle",
              "inproceedings": "conferencePaper",
              "conference": "conferencePaper",
              "book": "book",
              "incollection": "bookSection",
              "phdthesis": "thesis",
              "mastersthesis": "thesis",
              "misc": "document",
              "techreport": "report",
          }
          item_type = type_map.get(bib_type, "document")
  
          fields = {}
          for fmatch in re.finditer(r"(\w+)\s*=\s*\{(.*?)\}", body, re.DOTALL):
              fields[fmatch.group(1).lower()] = fmatch.group(2).strip()
  
          creators = []
          if "author" in fields:
              for author in re.split(r"\s+and\s+", fields["author"]):
                  parts = [p.strip() for p in author.split(",", 1)]
                  if len(parts) == 2:
                      creators.append({
                          "creatorType": "author",
                          "firstName": parts[1],
                          "lastName": parts[0],
                      })
                  else:
                      name_parts = parts[0].rsplit(" ", 1)
                      creators.append({
                          "creatorType": "author",
                          "firstName": name_parts[0] if len(name_parts) > 1 else "",
                          "lastName": name_parts[-1],
                      })
  
          item = {
              "itemType": item_type,
              "title": fields.get("title", ""),
              "creators": creators,
              "date": fields.get("year", ""),
              "DOI": fields.get("doi", ""),
              "url": fields.get("url", ""),
              "abstractNote": fields.get("abstract", ""),
          }
  
          if item_type == "journalArticle":
              item["publicationTitle"] = fields.get("journal", "")
              item["volume"] = fields.get("volume", "")
              item["pages"] = fields.get("pages", "")
          elif item_type == "conferencePaper":
              item["conferenceName"] = fields.get("booktitle", "")
          elif item_type == "bookSection":
              item["bookTitle"] = fields.get("booktitle", "")
          elif item_type == "book":
              item["publisher"] = fields.get("publisher", "")
  
          entries.append(item)
  
      return entries