Regular Expression in Adding Books

[jeffersonm]

Let me start out by apologizing for being a non-programmer!

I have a batch of files with the file name format:

"Publisher - Author - Title - Category.pdf"

I wish to import these files with the metadata being populated as Publisher=Publisher, Author=Author, Title=Title, and Category=Comments.

I have tried reading the tutorial and other posts online about how to format the regular expression for adding books, but frankly don't understand the nuances enough. I have tried playing with the test option and the expressions that pop up with the mouse rollover, but I can only seem to pick up the author and title.

Can anyone give me some help in creating this expression?

Thanks!

Jeff

[dunhill]

Have you tried the add book template as follows, to see if it works? ('P <Publicer>. +) - (? P <author> [^ _] +) - (? P <title>. +)
I do not think it is convenient for you to put the comments because they are infinite text fields. Try this waiting for a more accurate comment.

[jeffersonm]

Originally Posted by dunhill

Have you tried the add book template as follows, to see if it works? ('P <Publicer>. +) - (? P <author> [^ _] +) - (? P <title>. +)
I do not think it is convenient for you to put the comments because they are infinite text fields. Try this waiting for a more accurate comment.

Thank you for the response! Unfortunately, I tried this and get the error "Invalid regular expression: unexpected end of pattern". I tried Publicer (above and Publisher. No difference.

[davidfor]

There were some extra spaces in what @dunhill posted. And that first quote probably should have been a question mark. I think what he meant was:

(?P<publisher>.+?) - (?P<author>[^_]+?) - (?P<title>.+)

And the question mark after the plus is to make the matching non-greedy.

To get the comment as well:

(?P<publisher>.+?) - (?P<author>[^_]+?) - (?P<title>.+?) - (?P<comments>.+)

I haven't tested that in calibre. I did check it using https://regex101.com/.

[jeffersonm]

Originally Posted by davidfor

There were some extra spaces in what @dunhill posted. And that first quote probably should have been a question mark. I think what he meant was:

(?P<publisher>.+?) - (?P<author>[^_]+?) - (?P<title>.+)

And the question mark after the plus is to make the matching non-greedy.

To get the comment as well:

(?P<publisher>.+?) - (?P<author>[^_]+?) - (?P<title>.+?) - (?P<comments>.+)

I haven't tested that in calibre. I did check it using https://regex101.com/.

That appears to work, thank you so much!! I appreciate everyone's help.