Biblatex @inbook syntax error

Question

an entry I used for two years doesn't work anymore (in fact, there are dozen of them who don't work anymore). Instead I got a syntax error message:

found "mph", expected end of entry ("}" or ")") (skipping to next "@")

It seems that all entries with a "booktitle" or "maintitle" field now have a problem... What may be wrong ?

@inbook{CabFon,
author = {Cécile Caby},
Gender = {sf},
title = {Fondation et naissance des ordres religieux},
shorttitle = {Fondation et naissance},
booktitle = {Mittelalterliche Orden und Klöster im Vergleich},
year = {2007},
editor = {G. Melville and A. Müller},
subtitle = {Remarques pour une étude comparée des ordres religieux au Moyen Âge},
booksubtitle = {Methodische Ansätze und Perspektiv},
series = {Vita Regularis Abhandlungen},
number = {34},
location = {Münster},
Keywords                 = {Cisterciens, Mémoire}
}

This is what I had before Caby, Cécile, « Fondation et naissance des ordres religieux, Remarques pour une étude comparée des ordres religieux au Moyen Âge », in : Mittelalter- liche Orden und Klöster im Vergleich, Methodische Ansätze und Perspektiv, sous la dir. de G. Melville et A. Müller, Münster, 2007, Vita Regularis Abhandlungen 34.

The lines used to load biblatex are those ones

usepackage[style=verbose-ibid,isbn=false,backend=biber]{biblatex}
renewcommand*{mkibid}{emph}
renewcommand{newunitpunct}[0]{addcommaaddspace}

And the whole error message is

Process started

INFO - This is Biber 2.9 INFO - Logfile is 'Barth - Fiche - KD Â§ 75.blg'

INFO - Reading './Barth - Fiche - KD § 75.bcf' INFO - Found 1 citekeys in bib section 0 INFO - Processing section 0 INFO - Looking for bibtex format file '/mnt/E6A87F28A87EF701/Documents/Etudes/Z Outils/Bibliographie/Zbibtheologie.bib' for section 0 INFO - LaTeX decoding ... INFO - Found BibTeX data source '/mnt/E6A87F28A87EF701/Documents/Etudes/Z Outils/Bibliographie/Zbibtheologie.bib' ERROR - BibTeX subsystem: /tmp/YhijtomnmR/Zbibtheologie.bib_5463.utf8, line 768, syntax error: found "mph", expected end of entry ("}" or ")") (skipping to next "@") INFO - ERRORS: 1

Process exited with error(s)

line 768 is the line of the "maintitle" field in my bibliography file.

moewe · Answer

The entry CabFon shown in the question is syntactically well-formed and will not raise any Biber errors. But in the comments you posted the following entry

@inbook{BarKDIV475,
  author    = {Karl Barth},
  title     = {Die Taufe als Begründung des christlichen Lebens (emph{§~75 / Fragment})},
  booktitle = {Die Lehre der Versöhnung. Das christliche Leben} emph{(KD IV/4)}},
  year      = {1991},
  series    = {Studienausgabe},
  number    = {30},
  publisher = {Theologischer Verlag},
  location  = {Zürich},
}

Indeed that entry will cause errors because the } after Leben in the booktitle closes the field, so that the emph{(KD IV/4)}} is kept dangling.

You probably want

@inbook{BarKDIV475,
  author    = {Karl Barth},
  title     = {Die Taufe als Begründung des christlichen Lebens (emph{§~75 / Fragment})},
  booktitle = {Die Lehre der Versöhnung. Das christliche Leben emph{(KD IV/4)}},
  year      = {1991},
  series    = {Studienausgabe},
  number    = {30},
  publisher = {Theologischer Verlag},
  location  = {Zürich},
}

It has nothing to do with your problem, but you may want to consider changing

renewcommand*{mkibid}{emph}
renewcommand{newunitpunct}[0]{addcommaaddspace}

to

renewcommand*{mkibid}{mkbibemph}
renewcommand*{newunitpunct}{addcommaspace}

mkbibemph is the version of emph that should be used in a biblatex formatting context. The addspace in addcommaaddspace has no benefit over space, so all idiomatic expressions like this in the biblatex kernel and standard styles use addcommaspace.

Biblatex @inbook syntax error

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