RegEx - filename metadata help

[ejjenkins]

I have read through most of the threads for Calibre and regular expressions, I am at a loss.

I have a lot of books that are all saved in the exact same format and I want to be able to extract the metadata from the filenames. Here are a couple of examples:

Adams, Robert,Castaways In Time,01,Castaways in Time.txt
Anderson, Kevin J.,Game Earth,01,Game Earth.txt

All of them are: Author Last Name, First Name, Series Name, Series Index, and Title

If there is no series or series index, the comma will still be there, for example:

Aldiss, Brian W.,,,The Dark Light Years.txt
Anderson, Poul,,,Brainwave.txt

I know this is probably pretty easy and straightforward, but I can't seem to get my brain around this.

And as long as I am asking for the world, is there some way when Calibre sends the file to my kindle it will add the series name and index to the title so that is shows, for example:

Castaways in Time - 01 - Castaways in Time
Castaways in Time - 02 - The Seven Magical Jewels of Ireland

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[Manichean]

For importing metadata from filenames, you need regular expressions, for setting the path Calibre uses, you need the template language. There are tutorials available for both in the user manual.

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by ejjenkins

I have read through most of the threads for Calibre and regular expressions, I am at a loss.

I have a lot of books that are all saved in the exact same format and I want to be able to extract the metadata from the filenames. Here are a couple of examples:

Adams, Robert,Castaways In Time,01,Castaways in Time.txt
Anderson, Kevin J.,Game Earth,01,Game Earth.txt

All of them are: Author Last Name, First Name, Series Name, Series Index, and Title

If there is no series or series index, the comma will still be there, for example:

Aldiss, Brian W.,,,The Dark Light Years.txt
Anderson, Poul,,,Brainwave.txt

I know this is probably pretty easy and straightforward, but I can't seem to get my brain around this.

Try this regex:
^(?P<author>([^,]+,[^,]+)),(?P<series>[^,]*),(?P<series_index>[^,]*),(?P<title>[^,]*)

[ejjenkins]

kiwidude - Thank you for such a quick response, I truly appreciate it. I tried it out on several with and without series information and it worked flawlessly.

Thank you very much.

[ejjenkins]

Manichean - Thank you for pointing me in the direction of the template language, that was pretty straightforward for what I wanted, now Calibre puts the books onto my Kindle with the naming convention I wanted. I just had no idea where to look for that feature.

Thank you very much!