Latex and Bibtex

Using bibliography in latex might be headache sometimes. While I was writing my MSc thesis, I had taken some notes. I'd like to share them with you.

For a while, I was wondering what is the difference between bib and bbl. I learned that when you execute bibtex, bib files are converted to bbl.

Steps for running BIBTEX with LaTEX

1. Run LaTEX, which generates a list of \cite references in its auxiliary file, .aux.
2. Run BIBTEX, which reads the auxiliary file, looks up the references in a database
(one or more .bib files, and then writes a file (the .bbl file) containing the formatted
references according to the format specified in the style file (the .bst file). Warning
and error messages are written to the log file (the .blg file). It should be noted that
BIBTEX never reads the original LaTEX source file.
3. Run LaTEX again, which now reads the .bbl reference file.
4. Run LaTEX a third time, resolving all references.