Formatting publication year for BC vs AD

[hd_cal_dave]

As I understand it, the Calibre pubdate field (or any date based field) cannot handle books created BC. I have a number of ancient texts and would like to track this year.

So I have added a "First Published Year" field to my library and will have it hold a simple integer where negative numbers mean B.C. This is working well, but I see that each custom column has a "formatter" associated with it for pretty printing the value.

Doesn't anyone know the Python I'd have to create to turn my year number into something nice (for example):

-999 -> "1000 BC"

234 -> "234 AD"

I'd like to still sort on the internal integer value however.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by hd_cal_dave

As I understand it, the Calibre pubdate field (or any date based field) cannot handle books created BC. I have a number of ancient texts and would like to track this year.

So I have added a "First Published Year" field to my library and will have it hold a simple integer where negative numbers mean B.C. This is working well, but I see that each custom column has a "formatter" associated with it for pretty printing the value.

Doesn't anyone know the Python I'd have to create to turn my year number into something nice (for example):

-999 -> "1000 BC"

234 -> "234 AD"

I'd like to still sort on the internal integer value however.

as long as you do an ASCII sort with Leading Zero's one or the other will sort

The issue with BC is it an Ascending value the more it gets away from the Year 1.
The problem is the BC value sorts next to AD
0234AD
0234BC
1000AD
1000BC


You really need to use Signed numbers (forget about the AD/BC)

Maybe a Export template could made to drop the - Sign and ad the BC suffix

[davidfor]

Have a look at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=171823. It discusses something similar with a few suggestions of how to do it.