calibredb remove ...

[BerlinerKindl]

Hi,

is there a way to delete alot of book at the same time from Calibre via the "calibredb remove" command?

I will delete all books with tags:"x" or all book with series:"y".

Something like this:

calibredb list -s series:"xxx" | calibredb remove

Thanks

[kovidgoyal]

calibredb remove -h
Usage: calibredb remove ids

Remove the books identified by ids from the database. ids should be a comma separated list of id numbers (you can get id numbers by using the list command). For example, 23,34,57-85

[BerlinerKindl]

Thanks but after an

calibredb remove 1223-1237

I get this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site.py", line 58, in main
  File "site-packages/calibre/library/cli.py", line 1192, in main
  File "site-packages/calibre/library/cli.py", line 361, in command_remove
ValueError: int() base must be >= 2 and <= 36

[kovidgoyal]

Typo, fixed in next release.

[BerlinerKindl]

Thanks, waiting for next release.

[BerlinerKindl]

Works better but the last book would be not remove from library.

calibredb remove 12-15

This removed the books 12, 13 and 14 but NOT 15.

Thanks

[kovidgoyal]

That's the way lists indices work in python. Use 12-16

[TomVerse]

Hi,
I am trying to do something like BerlinerKindle.
The calibre program (8.10) runs on Windows 10 and the library and books are on my NAS. Everything works fine.
I want to automate a cleaning process and run the calibredb commands in a batch file.
I can find the required id's with
calibredb search tags:"=YourTag"
but don't know how I can pass the info to the calibredb remove-command.
What doesn't work is
calibredb search tags:"=YourTag" | calibredb remove
Result: Another program such as calibre-server.exe or the calibre main program is open. Having multiple programs open that can make changes to a calibre library is a bad idea. calibredb can connect directly to an open calibre Content server to make changes there. See the --with-library option documentation for details. Exception ignored in: <_io.TextIOWrapper name='<stdout>' mode='w' encoding='utf-8'>
OSError: [Errno 22] Invalid argument
There is no other calibre program running, is stacking the two commands the problem?

Trying to cut the action in two lines
1. calibredb search tags:"=YourTag" >>c:\temp\calibre_testing.txt
2. calibredb remove "c:\temp\calibre_testing.txt"
doesn't work either
Result: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "runpy.py", line 198, in _run_module_as_main
File "runpy.py", line 88, in _run_code
File "site.py", line 83, in <module>
File "site.py", line 78, in main
File "site.py", line 50, in run_entry_point
File "calibre\db\cli\main.py", line 253, in main
File "calibre\db\cli\main.py", line 40, in run_cmd
File "calibre\db\cli\cmd_remove.py", line 46, in main
File "calibre\db\cli\__init__.py", line 14, in integers_from_string
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'c:\\temp\\calibre_testing.txt'

Can you tell me what I do wrong or is it simply not possible to do this in batch?

[kovidgoyal]

First pipe the output of your search into a variable. Then execute the remove command. Like this:

ids=$(calibredb search whatever)
calibredb remove $ids

adnust the syntax for whatever actual shell you are using.

[TomVerse]

Thanks a million!