Touch Send to device changes apostrophes to underscores in file names

[mghr]

Hello, as it says on the title, Calibre sends files with apostrophes in them (in titles and series names) and changes them to underscores. Issues are in file names only, the metadata seems fine and opening the books displays the title normally.

I've tried retyping the apostrophes before sending and it didn't work and I've tried saving the file to disk directly on my Kobo and it saved normally. Any clue what the issue is? It's mainly an annoyance when viewing folders in Koreader so I could live with manually renaming my folders but I'd rather fix it with Calibre if I can since some of my series are still ongoing and it might cause issues when sending if I rename my folders.

[Quoth]

It's KoReader that's the problem for using a 1970s file interface instead of metadata.

You certainly can't have ":" in a file name either, though common enough in titles.

Don't rename the folders!

[mghr]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It's KoReader that's the problem for using a 1970s file interface instead of metadata.

You certainly can't have ":" in a file name either, though common enough in titles.

Don't rename the folders!

The thing is, colons are invalid file characters so I understand why it doesn't save those but apostrophes are completely legal, which is why it's so weird that Calibre sends it like that. Think I'll just accept my fate and just not show book or page names--just covers.

[Quoth]

Illegal in "Windows".
< (less than)
> (greater than)
: (colon - sometimes works, but is actually NTFS Alternate Data Streams)
" (double quote)
/ (forward slash)
\ (backslash)
| (vertical bar or pipe)
? (question mark)
* (asterisk)

Note: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT don't have the same rules as NTFS.

If a file name has spaces it might be surrounded by single quotes somewhere and thus a single quote (an apostrophe) is risky? I'm not sure.

POSIX defines a Portable Filename Character Set consisting of:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 . _ -

DOS, non-NT Windows and Windows NT have not quite the same rules as FAT32 used by an ereader (usually running Linux)
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/wi.../naming-a-file
For example on actual Windows

Do not use the following reserved names for the name of a file:

CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, COM¹, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, LPT9, and LPT¹. Also avoid these names followed immediately by an extension; for example, NUL.txt and NUL.tar.gz are both equivalent to NUL. For more information, see Namespaces.

Windows recognizes the 8-bit ISO/IEC 8859-1 superscript digits ¹, ², and ³ as digits and treats them as valid parts of COM# and LPT# device names, making them reserved in every directory. For example, echo test > COM¹ fails to create a file.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by mghr

The thing is, colons are invalid file characters so I understand why it doesn't save those but apostrophes are completely legal, which is why it's so weird that Calibre sends it like that. Think I'll just accept my fate and just not show book or page names--just covers.

Apostrophe isn't legal in a Posix compliant portable filename.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It's KoReader that's the problem for using a 1970s file interface instead of metadata.

You certainly can't have ":" in a file name either, though common enough in titles.

Don't rename the folders!

Rename the folders all you want. Just don't rename the directories.

[mghr]

Maybe apostrophes only worked on my old file names because I just saved to disk and just copied the files to Kobo. Either way I partially fixed my gripes via Koreader patches. Still looks janky but at least I don't have to look at underscores anymore https://imgur.com/a/3b4Q5Q4

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mghr

Maybe apostrophes only worked on my old file names because I just saved to disk and just copied the files to Kobo �� Either way I partially fixed my gripes via Koreader patches. Still looks janky but at least I don't have to look at underscores anymore.

Please attach your image as imagur does not work for a UK IP and we have a number of users in the UK. Also remove the imagur link.

[mghr]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Please attach your image as imagur does not work for a UK IP and we have a number of users in the UK. Also remove the imagur link.

Oops, sorry. I'm on phone and it wasn't letting me do that. I also can't edit the post anymore

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mghr

Oops, sorry. I'm on phone and it wasn't letting me do that

Thanks. It's due to the age requirement law (stupid law) on some sites in the UK. Some sites don't want to bother with age recognition and just block the UK

[mghr]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Rename the folders all you want. Just don't rename the directories.

I thought you'd meant renaming them would be fine even if you sent in new books but it seems that Calibre still just makes new folders so I think I'll just stick to renaming books in completed series. Thanks

[mghr]

Renamed some folders and they look a lot better now! Thanks again.