Delete duplicate entries from a bibtex library (only the first)

dup_deleter.py

bibstr='\n'.join(open('library.bib').readlines())
bibents=bibstr.split('@article')
def get_key(tstr):
    (stpos,endpos) = (tstr.find('{'),tstr.find(','))
    if(stpos>=0) & (endpos>stpos): return tstr[stpos+1:endpos]
    else: return tstr # keep everything

biblist=map(lambda x: (get_key(x),x),bibents)
outlist=[]
keyalready={}
for (cKey,cVal) in biblist:
    if keyalready.get(cKey,0)<1: 
        outlist+=[cVal]
        keyalready[cKey]=1

with open('library_dupfree.bib', 'w') as f:
    f.writelines("%s\n" % l for l in ('@article'.join(outlist)).split('\n'))

thanks so much for this <3

Thanks, this was extremely useful.