More help needed: regex for add books

[macnab69]

There are 2 questions, question 2 being the ideal situation..

Question 1:
If the book has no series, the file format is
author - title
If it does have series, the current format is
author - [series] [series_number] title

If I use this regex
(?P<author>.+) - \[(?P<series>.+)\] \[(?P<series_index>.+)\] (?P<title>[^_]+)
it works if there is a series, but not of there isn't.

How do I fix this?

Question 2:
I would prefer file format to be
author - [series series_number] title
But what if the series name is say Oceans 11, and the book is number 3 in the series. We'd have
author - [Oceans 11 03] - title
This requires a complicated regex, which is entirely beyond me.

[gabby98]

And you want this for adding books or saving to disk?

There should be something you can do with the bracket as the trigger, but I'm sleepy
and not of very much use atm. So I'll check back tomorrow and see if anyone else beat me to it.

[macnab69]

This is for adding - got saving to disk cracked (thanks to your inspiration.) have a good sleep.

[Sabardeyn]

Ok, it's late and I'm not sure I'm exactly answering your question... but take a look at my post in the Tyrannosaurus Regex topic.

While the topic is very old, the complex regex works extremely well and should do what you want. It has the added benefit of having a cursory explanation of which clump of regex is doing what. It doesn't (unfortunately) offer a fully detailed explanation as it's the combined effort of multiple people - I was simply the person to string together the bits and pieces.

The only catch that I see immediately is that it depends on " - " (space dash space) being the delimiter between author/series info and series info/title. This is mandatory to differentiate the series info out from the rest - particularly in an "Oceans 11" type of series name situation.

I have seen simpler regex variants that can produce somewhat similar results - but not exactly similar. One difference I remember dealt with having L33t5p34k (leetspeak) within the mix. But all of this is noted in the topic.

(Just in case... You might be able to use a bulk filename utility to add " - " if needed to any existing files. Check any freeware website for viable choices. Rename-It! is my main tool on Windows XP & 7. Haven't tried it on Win8.)

[macnab69]

Been using Bulk Rename Utility for years - excellent piece of software.

The regex works well, even handling the Oceans 11 scenario. Thanks.

I'll print out the regex and use coloured highlighters to mark off the sections and see if I can change it to use my bracket system. If successful, I will add it to that thread.

[gabby98]

OK..checking in after a long day (sorry so late) but let me know if you never found what you needed and I'll try to be of useful assistance in the light of day

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by macnab69

Been using Bulk Rename Utility for years - excellent piece of software.

The regex works well, even handling the Oceans 11 scenario. Thanks.

I'll print out the regex and use coloured highlighters to mark off the sections and see if I can change it to use my bracket system. If successful, I will add it to that thread.

You might also want to look at the Quick Preferences plugin. In addition to allowing you to quickly change most all Add books preferences, It allows you to maintain and quickly switch between multiple reg expressions for Add books.

[macnab69]

Thanks for the help everyone. The Quick Preferences plug-in is ideal for me - can have different filename styles without having to climb in with Bulk Rename Utility. The Swap Author Names is also useful.

Does anybody have an opinion on file-names with underscores instead of spaces, or is that best solved with Bulk Rename?

[macnab69]

If anybody finds this useful:

This regex will accept both of these formats:
author - title
author - [series series_index] title

Regex:

^(?P<author>((?!\s-\s).)+)\s-\s(?:(?:\[\s*)?(?P<series>.+)\s(?P<series_index>[\d\.]+)(?:\s*\])?\s)?(?P<title>[^(]+)(?:\(.*\))?

[Sabardeyn]

I'm glad to learn that my suggestion was helpful to you. And better still that you were able to alter it to fit your needs and re-posted it.


BTW, a forum related tip: Found a gem of wisdom in a thread but you cannot make use of it this instant? Use the Thread Tools>Subscribe to this Thread drop down menu option (top of page) to keep the thread title and link in your User Control Panel. If used sparingly, it's a great way to "bookmark" important threads.

[macnab69]

Good tip.

[gabby98]

glad you found what you needed!