[tex-live] [OS X TeX] Re: Plea/Request: Bibtex with increased BUF_SIZE

[Karl Berry]

    >>> The bibtex BUF_SIZE constant, set at compile time, controls the
    >>> maximum size of strings. 

Lee -- In web2c, most of the bibtex arrays are dynamically grown as
necessary; the 5000 BUF_SIZE is the initial size, not that hardcoded
maximum (in contrast to the original code).  It would seem your big
entries have found something that is still hardwired, or something else
is going wrong.  Can you please send the aux and bib files that cause
the problem so we can try to reproduce?

    Ladies and gents on texlive: what needs to be changed here and does 
    anything need to be changed at all or is it a matter of config values 
    at runtime after all?

Gerben -- I believe this change in texk/web2c/bibtex.ch is all that's
needed to test the larger version:

--- bibtex.ch	(revision 2077)
+++ bibtex.ch	(working copy)
@@ -163,7 +163,7 @@
 @x [still 14]
 @!buf_size=1000; {maximum number of characters in an input line (or string)}
 @y
-@!BUF_SIZE=5000; {initial maximum number of characters in an input line
+@!BUF_SIZE=20000; {initial maximum number of characters in an input line
                                                                 (or string)}
 @z
 

I've committed it to TL, for the hell of it.

k