MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Automatically keeping earliest date in a merge

meghane_e · 04-12-2021, 05:47 PM

Hi,
It's been a while since I did any tinkering on Calibre. I'm trying to merge multiple older libraries with a lot of overlapping books. From what I've found, it seems like the order should be:
1. Start with the oldest library as the base library.
2. Setup the 'Add books' task as desired:
make duplicate entries or not, ignoring copies, or copying the newest file, etc

3. Switch to the newer library. Copy books from the newer library to the base library using 'Copy to Library'.

4. Since the first two libraries I'm merging are nearly identical, the biggest piece of information I want to keep is whichever #timestamp is the earliest. So I made a custom column, #orig_entry_date, default value empty.

The most straightforward method I've found would be to do a bulk edit copy of #date or #timestamp to #orig_entry_date. While there is a #last_modified field, neither #date or #timestamp are available options in bulk edit. Is that correct behavior? What would I have to do instead?

Eventually, I would want to be able to compare the two #timestamp fields from each book and use the earliest one. I could use some pointers on getting started (a Tweak or something else, etc?). Thank you!

Thank you!!

04-12-2021, 05:47 PM	#1
meghane_e Zealot Posts: 113 Karma: 38500 Join Date: Sep 2016 Location: San Jose, CA Device: Kindle moving to Kobo or Boox	Automatically keeping earliest date in a merge Hi, It's been a while since I did any tinkering on Calibre. I'm trying to merge multiple older libraries with a lot of overlapping books. From what I've found, it seems like the order should be: 1. Start with the oldest library as the base library. 2. Setup the 'Add books' task as desired: make duplicate entries or not, ignoring copies, or copying the newest file, etc 3. Switch to the newer library. Copy books from the newer library to the base library using 'Copy to Library'. 4. Since the first two libraries I'm merging are nearly identical, the biggest piece of information I want to keep is whichever #timestamp is the earliest. So I made a custom column, #orig_entry_date, default value empty. The most straightforward method I've found would be to do a bulk edit copy of #date or #timestamp to #orig_entry_date. While there is a #last_modified field, neither #date or #timestamp are available options in bulk edit. Is that correct behavior? What would I have to do instead? Eventually, I would want to be able to compare the two #timestamp fields from each book and use the earliest one. I could use some pointers on getting started (a Tweak or something else, etc?). Thank you! Thank you!!