biblatex Entries linked using `related` sometimes mix up the title and editor in the bibliography

Consider the following LaTeX file:

\documentclass{scrbook}

\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}

\title{Bib\LaTeX\ bug report}
\author{\texttt{github.com/thibaulltt}}
\date{\today}

\addbibresource{bibliography.bib}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

Here are some translated works:
\begin{itemize}
	\item \textcite{gromov1981structures} was translated into \textcite{gromov1999metric};
	\item \textcite{berger1977geometrie} was translated into \textcite{berger2004geometry};
	\item \textcite{kolmogoroff1933grundbegriffe} was translated into \textcite{kolmogorov2018foundations}.
\end{itemize}

\printbibliography
\end{document}

And the following bib file:

% First of all, the Gromov-Hausdorff metric (taken from Scholar, augmented with Springer data):
@book{gromov1999metric,
	title={Metric structures for Riemannian and non-Riemannian spaces},
	author={Gromov, Mikhael},
	editor={Katz, Misha and Pansu, Pierre and Semmes, Stephen},
	pagetotal={586},
	year={1999},
	translator={Bates, Sean Michael},
	series={Modern Birkh\"auser Classics},
	volume={152},
	publisher={Springer},
	isbn={9780817645823},
	doi={10.1007/978-0-8176-4583-0},
	related={gromov1981structures},
	relatedtype={translationfrom},
}

% The original book for the Gromov-Hausdorff metric:
@book{gromov1981structures,
	title={Structures m{\'e}triques pour les vari{\'e}t{\'e}s riemanniennes},
	author={Gromov, Mikhael},
	editor={Lafontaine, Jacques and Pansu, Pierre},
	pagetotal={150},
	year={1981},
	series={Textes math{\'e}matiques},
	volume={1},
	publisher={CEDIC and Fernand Nathan},
	isbn={9782712407148},
	related={gromov1999metric},
	relatedtype={translationas},
}

% Kolmogorov: 1933 Grundbegriffe der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung (Foundations on the Theory of Probability -- original German monograph)
@book{kolmogoroff1933grundbegriffe,
	title={Grundbegriffe der wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung},
	author={Kolmogoroff, Andre\"i},
	year={1933},
	publisher={Springer},
	related={kolmogorov2018foundations},
	relatedtype={translationas},
	doi={10.1007/978-3-642-49888-6},
	isbn={978-3-642-49596-0},
}

% Kolmogorov: 1950 (Translation of) Foundations of the Theory of Probability
@book{kolmogorov2018foundations,
	title={Foundations of the theory of probability: Second English Edition},
	author={Kolmogoroff, Andre\"i},
	related={kolmogoroff1933grundbegriffe},
	relatedtype={translationfrom},
	translator={Bharucha-Reid, Albert Turner and Morrison, Nathan},
	isbn={9780486821597},
	lccn={2017046438},
	series={Dover Books on Mathematics},
	url={https://books.google.fr/books?id=ZZ5ODwAAQBAJ},
	publisher={Dover Publications},
	year={2018},
}

% Berger, notes de cours sur la géométrie. 5 volumes.
% Mentionne la distance de Hausdorff par boules.
@mvbook{berger1977geometrie,
	title={Géométrie},
	author={Berger, Marcel},
	volumes={5},
	year={1977},
	editor={Cedic and Nathan, Fernand},
	language={french},
	related={berger2004geometry},
	relatedtype={translationas},
}

% Traduction de Berger (1977):
@mvbook{berger2004geometry,
	title={Geometry},
	author={Berger, Marcel},
	volumes={2},
	year={2004},
	translator={Levy, Silvio and Cole, Michael},
	publisher={Springer},
	isbn={9783540116585},
	related={berger1977geometrie},
	relatedtype={translationfrom},
}

The citation keys gromov1981structures and berger1977geometrie (and their translations) have their editors and title mixed up on the translated reference. See the example from the gromov1981structures:

Mikhael Gromov. Structures métriques pour les variétés riemanniennes. Ed. by Jacques Lafontaine and Pierre Pansu. Vol. 1. Textes mathématiques. CEDIC and Fernand Nathan, 1981. 150 pp. isbn: 9782712407148. Trans. as Misha Katz, Pierre Pansu, and Stephen Semmes, eds. Metric structures for Riemannian and non-Riemannian spaces. Trans. by Sean Michael Bates. Vol. 152. Modern Birkhäuser Classics. Springer, 1999. 586 pp. isbn: 780817645823. doi: 10.1007/978-0-8176-4583-0.

I'm unsure if this is a bug with biber or biblatex, but after a quick inspection (a.k.a. grep search) the BBL file created by biber seems fine! It lists the editors and titles in their respective fields, no mixup is present there.

Apr 17 '25 09:04 Thibaulltt

I should mention this seems to happen regardless of the citation/bibliography styles. I tested a couple and the error was still present.

Apr 17 '25 09:04 Thibaulltt

And I forgot to mention (even though this should not be the problem), I am using lualatex to compile my documents.

Apr 17 '25 09:04 Thibaulltt

Whether this should be considered as a bug or intended behaviour is for others to decide, but I can explain why this happens.

When the primary name (author or editor) of the related entry is the same as the primary name in the parent entry, this name is cleared at the start of the code which prints the related entry. This is done so that this primary name is not repeated.

All your related entries clear the author under this rule. But then some of your related entries also have an editor. This editor gets promoted to the primary name in the absence of the now cleared author. So you see it as the title and editor being swapped.

With the related code as it is written now, the way to avoid this happening is to add:

relatedoptions = {useeditor=false}

to your parent entries where the related entry is not output as you want. I think a case could be made that biblatex ought to do this automatically in the related code.

So I can adjust your bib entries to:

% First of all, the Gromov-Hausdorff metric (taken from Scholar, augmented with Springer data):
@book{gromov1999metric,
	title={Metric structures for Riemannian and non-Riemannian spaces},
	author={Gromov, Mikhael},
	editor={Katz, Misha and Pansu, Pierre and Semmes, Stephen},
	pagetotal={586},
	year={1999},
	translator={Bates, Sean Michael},
	series={Modern Birkh\"auser Classics},
	volume={152},
	publisher={Springer},
	isbn={9780817645823},
	doi={10.1007/978-0-8176-4583-0},
	related={gromov1981structures},
	relatedtype={translationfrom},
        relatedoptions={useeditor=false}
}

% The original book for the Gromov-Hausdorff metric:
@book{gromov1981structures,
	title={Structures m{\'e}triques pour les vari{\'e}t{\'e}s riemanniennes},
	author={Gromov, Mikhael},
	editor={Lafontaine, Jacques and Pansu, Pierre},
	pagetotal={150},
	year={1981},
	series={Textes math{\'e}matiques},
	volume={1},
	publisher={CEDIC and Fernand Nathan},
	isbn={9782712407148},
	related={gromov1999metric},
	relatedtype={translationas},
        relatedoptions={useeditor=false}
}

% Kolmogorov: 1933 Grundbegriffe der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung (Foundations on the Theory of Probability -- original German monograph)
@book{kolmogoroff1933grundbegriffe,
	title={Grundbegriffe der wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung},
	author={Kolmogoroff, Andre\"i},
	year={1933},
	publisher={Springer},
	related={kolmogorov2018foundations},
	relatedtype={translationas},
	doi={10.1007/978-3-642-49888-6},
	isbn={978-3-642-49596-0},
}

% Kolmogorov: 1950 (Translation of) Foundations of the Theory of Probability
@book{kolmogorov2018foundations,
	title={Foundations of the theory of probability: Second English Edition},
	author={Kolmogoroff, Andre\"i},
	related={kolmogoroff1933grundbegriffe},
	relatedtype={translationfrom},
	translator={Bharucha-Reid, Albert Turner and Morrison, Nathan},
	isbn={9780486821597},
	lccn={2017046438},
	series={Dover Books on Mathematics},
	url={https://books.google.fr/books?id=ZZ5ODwAAQBAJ},
	publisher={Dover Publications},
	year={2018},
}

% Berger, notes de cours sur la géométrie. 5 volumes.
% Mentionne la distance de Hausdorff par boules.
@mvbook{berger1977geometrie,
	title={Géométrie},
	author={Berger, Marcel},
	volumes={5},
	year={1977},
	editor={Cedic and Nathan, Fernand},
	language={french},
	related={berger2004geometry},
	relatedtype={translationas},
}

% Traduction de Berger (1977):
@mvbook{berger2004geometry,
	title={Geometry},
	author={Berger, Marcel},
	volumes={2},
	year={2004},
	translator={Levy, Silvio and Cole, Michael},
	publisher={Springer},
	isbn={9783540116585},
	related={berger1977geometrie},
	relatedtype={translationfrom},
        relatedoptions={useeditor=false}
}

And this gives:

Apr 18 '25 01:04 dcpurton

Thanks for the explanation on the useeditor configuration, it seems to temporarily fix the problem. However, this raises more questions than it answers.

Why does an option called useeditor=false still prints the editors in the example you show? The documentation for biblatex mentions it only replaces a "missing" author name for sorting and labels but makes no mention of changing the formatted text in the biliography.
While the option seems to fix the problem, it only highlights the fact some fields are indeed "flipped" when formatting the text for the reference. If I set useeditor=true (default) the name of M.Gromov is removed from the bibliography entry but it is still formatted as Trans. from <editor list>, eds. <name of book> which seems like a problem to me.

I could not find anything in my (admittedly short) reading of the biblatex documentation on the issue, but it seems like it's either an undocumented intended behavior, or a bug.

Apr 22 '25 10:04 Thibaulltt

Hmm. This doesn't look ideal. But I'm not sure if there is a quick and easy fix.

For your question 1 in the last comment, note that the documentation of useeditor goes on to say

Setting useeditor=false does not mean that the editor is ignored completely. It means that the editor does not replace a missing author in labels and during sorting. The entry will then be alphabetized by title . With the standard styles, the editor is printed after the title in this case.

If a @book doesn't have an author (either because there really is none, or because it has been deleted - possibly automatically - by biblatex), any editor is moved to the front of the entry in the author position before the title. If useeditor=false, is set that does not happen and the editor stays where it usually is, namely after the title as "edited by ...".

Apr 22 '25 17:04 moewew