regex to find words in ALL CAPITAL letters

C8H10N4O2 · 04-26-2022, 06:05 PM

I've been looking for a search that will return all books in my library that have at least one work that is in all capital letters. My current iteration of this is

Code:

title:"~\w[A-Z]+(?:\s+[A-Z]+)*\w"

. I have also tried

Code:

title:"~[A-Z\s]+"

and

Code:

title:"~m/^[^a-z]*$/"

.

None of these are returning what I expect. Can someone help me figure otu what I'm doing wrong?

kovidgoyal · 04-26-2022, 10:04 PM

title:~\b[A-Z]+\b

davidfor · 04-26-2022, 11:06 PM

That didn't work here. The help says search is case insensitive. Is that the true for regex searches?

kovidgoyal · 04-26-2022, 11:26 PM

prefix the pattern with (?-i) should remove case-insensitivity

davidfor · 04-26-2022, 11:43 PM

That did not find anything. To be clear, what I am using is:

Code:

title:~(?-i)\b[A-Z]+\b

And for test cases, I have books with titles "EXTRA Chapters.kepub" and "ToC WITH Some Anchors".

kovidgoyal · 04-27-2022, 01:19 AM

set case sensitive searching in Preferences->searching, the use the expression

title:~\b[A-Z]{2,}\b

which will find all titles that have all caps words of length at least 2 letters.

C8H10N4O2 · 04-27-2022, 09:46 AM

The update to the settings solved it for me.

That does bring up an interesting question, though... If a user is performing a regex search and specifying that they are looking for a very specific pattern (like this one), should the case preference still apply? I would almost think that, if a user were searching using regex, their search input should override the preferences. Most people wouldn't be using regex if they didn't have a bit of a clue about how it works.

All of my initial test searches above all work once the preference is updated.

What do you think?

davidfor · 04-27-2022, 08:35 PM

I don't think so. It would basically means that calibre needs to be able to read minds. For your example, it probably makes sense. But, if the I was searching for "aa", how does it know whether I want lowercase only rather than case insensitive.

For me, the ability to turn on or off the case sensitivity should be easier to get to. I am used to the search in the editor where there is a checkbox to enable a case sensitive search. The problem is that I can't see how to add this here. And I am not sure it is something that would be changed frequently enough to make it worthwhile. As this is the first time I can remember the subject coming up, maybe it isn't.

C8H10N4O2 · 05-02-2022, 09:33 AM

I can understand where you are coming from, but on the flip side, when someone is using regex to search, I feel like they would expect it to perform exactly as specified in the query. I can understand overriding when doing regular text searching, but regex should intrinsically allow more control.

Now that I know to turn the option on/off, it isn't such a big deal.

04-26-2022, 06:05 PM	#1
C8H10N4O2 Member Posts: 19 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: iPad 3, Kindle DX	regex to find words in ALL CAPITAL letters I've been looking for a search that will return all books in my library that have at least one work that is in all capital letters. My current iteration of this is Code: title:"~\w[A-Z]+(?:\s+[A-Z]+)\w" . I have also tried Code: title:"~[A-Z\s]+" and Code: title:"~m/^[^a-z]$/" . None of these are returning what I expect. Can someone help me figure otu what I'm doing wrong?

04-26-2022, 11:43 PM	#5
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	That did not find anything. To be clear, what I am using is: Code: title:~(?-i)\b[A-Z]+\b And for test cases, I have books with titles "EXTRA Chapters.kepub" and "ToC WITH Some Anchors".

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04-26-2022, 10:04 PM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,345 Karma: 27182818 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	title:~\b[A-Z]+\b

04-26-2022, 11:06 PM	#3
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	That didn't work here. The help says search is case insensitive. Is that the true for regex searches?

04-26-2022, 11:26 PM	#4
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,345 Karma: 27182818 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	prefix the pattern with (?-i) should remove case-insensitivity

04-27-2022, 01:19 AM	#6
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,345 Karma: 27182818 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	set case sensitive searching in Preferences->searching, the use the expression title:~\b[A-Z]{2,}\b which will find all titles that have all caps words of length at least 2 letters.

04-27-2022, 09:46 AM	#7
C8H10N4O2 Member Posts: 19 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: iPad 3, Kindle DX	The update to the settings solved it for me. That does bring up an interesting question, though... If a user is performing a regex search and specifying that they are looking for a very specific pattern (like this one), should the case preference still apply? I would almost think that, if a user were searching using regex, their search input should override the preferences. Most people wouldn't be using regex if they didn't have a bit of a clue about how it works. All of my initial test searches above all work once the preference is updated. What do you think?

04-27-2022, 08:35 PM	#8
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	I don't think so. It would basically means that calibre needs to be able to read minds. For your example, it probably makes sense. But, if the I was searching for "aa", how does it know whether I want lowercase only rather than case insensitive. For me, the ability to turn on or off the case sensitivity should be easier to get to. I am used to the search in the editor where there is a checkbox to enable a case sensitive search. The problem is that I can't see how to add this here. And I am not sure it is something that would be changed frequently enough to make it worthwhile. As this is the first time I can remember the subject coming up, maybe it isn't.

05-02-2022, 09:33 AM	#9
C8H10N4O2 Member Posts: 19 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: iPad 3, Kindle DX	I can understand where you are coming from, but on the flip side, when someone is using regex to search, I feel like they would expect it to perform exactly as specified in the query. I can understand overriding when doing regular text searching, but regex should intrinsically allow more control. Now that I know to turn the option on/off, it isn't such a big deal.

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