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kensmosis · 01-14-2016, 10:30 PM

Thanks so much for your reply. What I want to do is actually simpler and (to my mind) more natural than download the date from a file or from a format file or adjust it manually. I want to use the unix time stamp that the file has before being added. For example, suppose I have a file foo.pdf sitting in my home directory. It has 3 unix timestamps, but let's suppose we just care about the last modification time. For example, I run 'ls -l foo.pdf' and it displays Sept 3, 2015. When I add it to Calibre, a copy is created in calibre's library. However, the copy has today's date (Jan 14, 2016) and all the time info from the original file is lost (i.e. it is copied using the equivalent of 'cp' rather than 'cp -a'). Whether because of this or in addition to it, the metadata.db has Jan 14, 2016 in all of its date columns. It seems very natural to me that one could want to import the dates from the unix file itself rather than metadata or some other source. For example, the unix ctime could map to publication date, the unix mtime could map to the ordinary "timestamp" date in the db. This is a very natural thing to do -- so I'd be quite surprised if there isn't functionality for it. I just assumed I was missing something. But then, my use may not be the typical one. Calibre would be extremely well suited for managing scanned documents (bills, etc) as well as books if it has this feature, but not so much if it doesn't. If it's not a feature yet, then perhaps I'll post it as a suggestion on the calibre site. Unfortunately, because it involves the original file prior to addition, I doubt that a simple add-on can be written to implement it.

01-14-2016, 10:30 PM	#3
kensmosis Junior Member Posts: 9 Karma: 22 Join Date: Sep 2015 Device: none	@BetterRed Thanks so much for your reply. What I want to do is actually simpler and (to my mind) more natural than download the date from a file or from a format file or adjust it manually. I want to use the unix time stamp that the file has before being added. For example, suppose I have a file foo.pdf sitting in my home directory. It has 3 unix timestamps, but let's suppose we just care about the last modification time. For example, I run 'ls -l foo.pdf' and it displays Sept 3, 2015. When I add it to Calibre, a copy is created in calibre's library. However, the copy has today's date (Jan 14, 2016) and all the time info from the original file is lost (i.e. it is copied using the equivalent of 'cp' rather than 'cp -a'). Whether because of this or in addition to it, the metadata.db has Jan 14, 2016 in all of its date columns. It seems very natural to me that one could want to import the dates from the unix file itself rather than metadata or some other source. For example, the unix ctime could map to publication date, the unix mtime could map to the ordinary "timestamp" date in the db. This is a very natural thing to do -- so I'd be quite surprised if there isn't functionality for it. I just assumed I was missing something. But then, my use may not be the typical one. Calibre would be extremely well suited for managing scanned documents (bills, etc) as well as books if it has this feature, but not so much if it doesn't. If it's not a feature yet, then perhaps I'll post it as a suggestion on the calibre site. Unfortunately, because it involves the original file prior to addition, I doubt that a simple add-on can be written to implement it.