MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Help with non-standard characters in directory names

Terry Brown · 07-08-2021, 11:35 AM

I have been working on a python program that retrieves information from my Calibre database and acts as a bookmarking tool for syncing my reading location across multiple devices I use to read multiple formats of ebooks, but that don't sync very reliably.

As part of this, I have accessed cover files within the Calibre library file structure.

I am using macOS. In python, I am using the pillow library (from PIL import Image) to read the cover image, convert to a png thumbnail for my use.

The problem is that characters like single and double quotes, commas, non-ascii characters, and so on mean that I cannot get to some of the directories Calibre creates. A good example is the recent book "Ring Shout" by P. Djèlí Clark--the non-standard characters in the author name mean that the PIL library calls using the path I create don't work.

I have tediously fixed all the current problems by manipulating the author names and book titles in Calibre to remove or change the offending characters--not a good solution.

Anyone know how can I manage this in the Python code?

07-08-2021, 11:35 AM	#1
Terry Brown Enthusiast Posts: 41 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Portland, OR Device: M1 Max Mac Studio, iPad Pro 2018 12.9, iPhone 7	Help with non-standard characters in directory names I have been working on a python program that retrieves information from my Calibre database and acts as a bookmarking tool for syncing my reading location across multiple devices I use to read multiple formats of ebooks, but that don't sync very reliably. As part of this, I have accessed cover files within the Calibre library file structure. I am using macOS. In python, I am using the pillow library (from PIL import Image) to read the cover image, convert to a png thumbnail for my use. The problem is that characters like single and double quotes, commas, non-ascii characters, and so on mean that I cannot get to some of the directories Calibre creates. A good example is the recent book "Ring Shout" by P. Djèlí Clark--the non-standard characters in the author name mean that the PIL library calls using the path I create don't work. I have tediously fixed all the current problems by manipulating the author names and book titles in Calibre to remove or change the offending characters--not a good solution. Anyone know how can I manage this in the Python code?