Sstrhsrtj

I want to build a publication list for myself using biblatex-publist. I follow the instruction in the doc version 1.11 but I get the error message

Undefined control sequence. l.4 plauthorname
{Frank} The control sequence at the end of the top line of your error message was never def'ed.

My trivial small example is:

documentclass{article}

usepackage[bibstyle=publist]{biblatex}



plauthorname{Frank}

addbibresource{AFcleanarticles.bib}



begin{document}



title{Andrew U. Frank's publications}

date{today}

maketitle





section{Articles}

newrefsection[AFcleanarticles]

nocite{*}

printbibliography[heading=none] 



end{document}

the log file - following the suggestion - says:

(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/biblatex/blx-dm.def)

Package biblatex Info: Trying to load biblatex bibstyle data model...

Package biblatex Info: ... file 'publist.dbx' not found.

Package biblatex Info: Trying to load biblatex custom data model...

Package biblatex Info: ... file 'biblatex-dm.cfg' not found.

and indeed I have no biblatex-dm.cfg and have
/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/biblatex-publist/publist.cbx
and the correspoinding dbx.

More from the log:

Package biblatex Info: Trying to load bibliography style 'publist'...

Package biblatex Info: ... file 'publist.bbx' found.



(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/biblatex-publist/publist.bbx

File: publist.bbx 2016/08/06 v.1.3 biblatex bibliography style (JSP)

Package biblatex Info: Trying to load bibliography style 'authoryear'...

Package biblatex Info: ... file 'authoryear.bbx' found.



(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/biblatex/bbx/authoryear.bbx

File: authoryear.bbx 2016/12/05 v3.7 biblatex bibliography style (PK/JW/AB)

Package biblatex Info: Trying to load bibliography style 'standard'...

Package biblatex Info: ... file 'standard.bbx' found.



(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/biblatex/bbx/standard.bbx

File: standard.bbx 2016/12/05 v3.7 biblatex bibliography style (PK/JW/AB)

c@bbx:relatedcount=count271

c@bbx:relatedtotal=count272

))

extralabelnumberwidth=skip57

)

The installation is with debian packages on a linux-debian(stretch) system.

what am I doing wrong? Help appreciated!

The .log snippets show that your TeX distribution has version 1.3 of biblatex-publist, that version dates back to August 2016.

According to https://github.com/jspitz/biblatex-publist/tree/0dae8f681c61524aa6c492d926b1b9062af30d26 the macro that is now called plauthorname was called omitname back then. So you may have more luck when you replace plauthorname with omitname in the above example.

Usually you can access the documentation of the package version installed on your machine by typing texdoc <package> in the command line. In your case texdoc biblatex-publist should bring up the documentation of version 1.3. It is generally safer to consult the documentation of the version you have installed rather than the documentation of the newest version on CTAN (though I will admit that I am so used to googling everything that reading the documentation on CTAN happens more naturally than going to a command line and calling texdoc, but I'm trying to get better).

If you want to update your TeX system, have a look at How do I update my TeX distribution?. If you are running a TeX live that was installed via the package repositories of your Linux distribution, chances are you can not update. In that case you have to install a vanilla TeX live from TUG if you want to live on the bleeding edge of development (see How to install "vanilla" TeXLive on Debian or Ubuntu?). It is usually a very, very bad idea to manually update packages from CTAN. Especially with biblatex and Biber you can easily run into incompatibilities.