turn bibtex string into apa formatted citation string. the authors' names are concatenated by commas. First name and mid name are shortened.

bibex_to_apa.py

import bibtexparser
from bibtexparser.bparser import BibTexParser
from bibtexparser.customization import convert_to_unicode


def parse_author(auth_str):
    auth_str_authors = auth_str.split(" and ")
    authors = []
    for author in auth_str_authors:
        if "," in author:
            author_parts = author.split(", ")
            last_name = author_parts.pop(0)
            new_name = []

            for name in author_parts:
                if '-' in name:
                    sub_name = name.split('-')
                    new_sub_name = []
                    for s in sub_name:
                        new_sub_name.append(s[0].upper() + '.')
                    new_name.append('-'.join(new_sub_name))
                elif ' ' in name:
                    sub_name = name.split(' ')
                    new_sub_name = []
                    for s in sub_name:
                        new_sub_name.append(s[0].upper() + '.')
                    new_name.append(' '.join(new_sub_name))
                else:
                    new_name.append(name[0].upper())
            new_name.append(last_name)

            authorfirstlast = " ".join(new_name)
            authors.append(authorfirstlast)
        else:
            if author != 'other' and author != 'others':
                authors.append(author)
    return ', '.join(authors)


def parse_title(data):
    entrytype = data['ENTRYTYPE']
    if entrytype != 'phdthesis':
        return data['title']
    else:
        if 'school' in data:
            school = ', ' + data['school']
        else:
            school = ''
        title = data['title'] + ' (Doctoral dissertation' + school + ')'
        return title


def bib_to_apa(bib_database):
    parser = BibTexParser()
    parser.customization = convert_to_unicode

    bib_data = bibtexparser.loads(bib_database, parser=parser)
    bib_database = bib_data.entries[0]
    try:
        year = ' (' + bib_database['year'] + ')'
    except:
        year = ''
    authors = parse_author(bib_database['author'])
    title = parse_title(bib_database)
    try:
        pages = bib_database['pages']
    except:
        pages = ''
    try:
        number = '(' + bib_database['number'] + ')'
    except:
        number = ''
    try:
        volume = bib_database['volume']
    except:
        volume = ''
    vol_num= volume + number
    try:
        paper_from = 'In ' + bib_database['booktitle']
    except:
        paper_from = None
    if paper_from is None:
        try:
            paper_from = bib_database['journal']
        except:
            paper_from = ''
    detail_list = []
    if paper_from != '':
        detail_list.append(paper_from)
    if vol_num != '':
        detail_list.append(vol_num)
    if pages != '' and 'booktitle' not in bib_database:
        detail_list.append(pages)
    if len(detail_list) > 0:
        detail = ', '.join(detail_list)
    else:
        detail = ''
    if pages != '' and 'booktitle'  in bib_database:
        detail+=' (pp. '+pages+')'
    field_list = [authors + year, title]
    if detail != '':
        field_list.append(detail)
    field_list.append('')
    return '. '.join(field_list)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print(bib_to_apa("""@article{yang2018target,
  title={Target guiding self-avoiding random walk with intersection algorithm for minimum exposure path problem in wireless sensor networks},
  author={Yang, Tinghong and Jiang, Dali and Fang, Haiyang and Tan, Mian and Xie, Li and Zhao, Jing},
  journal={EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking},
  volume={2018},
  number={1},
  pages={33},
  year={2018},
  publisher={Nature Publishing Group}
}
    """))
    print(bib_to_apa("""@inproceedings{duong2017temporal,
  title={Temporal non-volume preserving approach to facial age-progression and age-invariant face recognition},
  author={Duong, Chi Nhan and Quach, Kha Gia and Luu, Khoa and Le, T Hoang Ngan and Savvides, Marios},
  booktitle={Computer Vision (ICCV), 2017 IEEE International Conference on},
  pages={3755--3763},
  year={2017},
  organization={IEEE}
}
    """))