Listing books with data files

[mcam]

Is there a way to filter books containing data files?

[kovidgoyal]

you canuse a template based search, but it will be slow since check if a book has data files requires filesystem access.

[mcam]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

you canuse a template based search, but it will be slow since check if a book has data files requires filesystem access.

Thanks. Maybe in future DATA can be considered as one of a book's formats?

[kovidgoyal]

No, data is never going to be in the database. That was a deliberate design decision. It allows users to manipulate data outside of calibre. Linking it to the database would mean disallowing manipulation outside calibre, just as for formats.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

you canuse a template based search, but it will be slow since check if a book has data files requires filesystem access.

If you're going to be doing frequent searches, consider adding an entry to one of the metadata columns. "Has extra files" in tags, for instance. Is faster.

[chaley]

See this post for a template search that finds books with extra files.

You can use this and bulk metadata edit to maintain a tag as @ownedbycats suggests.

[BetterRed]

I keep a "file:///blah blah (nnnnnn)/data/" URL, labelled "Attachments", in a Links/#links custom long text column. A search for #links:"attachments" finds the 1,334 books that have data folders in a 19,756 book library 'instantly'.

Prior to the recent changes I already had 'Attachment' folder URLs in the #links custom column. They referenced folders that had the book number as their name - e.g. D:\Calibre\Libraries\Books\!Attachments\123. The !Attachments folder was excluded from Check library.

So, converting to the new scheme was relatively easy for me.

BR