Do not want plus sign (+) getting converted to space when saving to disk

[flueterflam]

I tried finding the answer to this, but mostly found things pertaining to splitting multiple authors. If you happen to know that I missed a post on this, please point me in the right direction!

In the columns and metadata, the authors are being split by ampersands (&). This is all fine and dandy. However, I really hate how they look in the filenames for books/papers. Instead, I generally use the plus sign (+) and no spaces between the authors' last names. Example:

Sakel+Everett_-_Linguistic_Fieldwork_(2012)

I actually have the template set up perfectly in the "Saving books to disk" preferences. Here is what I got:

{author_sort:'re(re($,"\,.*\&\s?","+"),"\,.*$","")'}

I made a new column with this and the file name looks perfect! However, when I attempt to save to disk with this exact same template, there is some type of processing taking place between this template and the filename being written. What happens is that the plus sign (+) gets replaced with a space (or underscore, if I select the "replace spaces with underscores" option).

I looked around, tried changing various options that seemed even remotely related, and got no results. The plus sign (+) is valid ASCII, and it is also valid for filenames on Windows and Linux (not sure about Mac). So, there is no need to force this to change...

Does anyone know where I can look for an option/regex that is causing this?

Thanks!

[theducks]

Plus is not always valid in a file name.
It is the symbol for concatenation (adding 2 files together)

Calibre tries to ONLY allow file names that are valid in ALL OS

[flueterflam]

I'm assuming because you didn't proffer any way to circumvent this, that it's not possible. Anyhow, out of curiosity, which OSes do not allow the plus sign in a file name?

[PeterT]

I think there is a difference between usage in command prompts. vs actual characters allowed in file names.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename for some reading on the subject.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by flueterflam

Anyhow, out of curiosity, which OSes do not allow the plus sign in a file name?

Windows '95, but only on FAT32 devices, I assume later Windows would be the same - disallow it on FAT32 devices only.

IIRC, FAT32 also disallows square brackets.

BR

[kovidgoyal]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filenam...me_limitations

[flueterflam]

Ok, I understand why. But Windows 95 is unsupported and very obsolete now. As far as FAT32 devices, don't most OSes also allow the exFAT format also, which does not have this limitation? Furthermore, according to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFAT#VFAT

Non VFAT-enabled operating systems can still access the files under their short file name alias without restrictions, however, the associated long file names may get lost, when files with long file names are copied under non VFAT-aware operating systems.

This seems acceptable to me. The rare time that I might used a USB drive/SD card in an OS which doesn't support "+", it would fall back to the short file name, which could have this restriction retained. It would remove the limitation of disallowing "+", which seems to be allowed in all other file formats and OSes for filenames.

[HarryT]

The FAT32 file system (which doesn't allow "+" in a filename) is used by virtually all reading devices.