Change author with calibredb

[n3ssi3]

Hey

I am trying to add a space in the authors name:

root@1dce1a6e8ae1:/# calibredb --with-library=/books/ show_metadata 5032
Title               : Connections in Death
Title sort          : Connections in Death
Author(s)           : J.D. Robb [Robb, J.D.]
Publisher           : St. Martin's Press
Series              : In Death #48
Languages           : eng
Timestamp           : 2021-07-01T07:08:39+00:00
Published           : 2019-02-05T00:00:00+00:00
Identifiers         : isbn:9781250201577, goodreads:40122012

root@1dce1a6e8ae1:/# calibredb --with-library=/books/ set_metadata 5032 --field authors 'J. D. Robb'
The OPF file /J. D. Robb does not exist

what does "The OPF file /J. D. Robb does not exist" mean?
I already have many books by this author spelled `J. D. Robb` and only this one book is under another folder because the space is missing...

What is the proper command to change the authers name with calibredb?

Thank you

[JSWolf]

Would it not be so much easier to use the GUI?

[n3ssi3]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Would it not be so much easier to use the GUI?

Yes it would. But changes by the GUI will be ignored by the api.
I have calibre and readarr hosted on my media server.
Running in docker
- https://fleet.linuxserver.io/image?n...server/calibre
- https://hub.docker.com/r/hotio/reada...g=last_updated

I used to mount the books folder with samba and have the GUI running on my machine.
Having those changes applied to the API would be my ideal setup

Is there a way i can do that? f.e. symlink the metadata.db ?

[georgemk]

From the manual

calibredb set_metadata [options] id [/path/to/metadata.opf]

So you need to put the options --field author "name" before the ID not afterwards.

[n3ssi3]

Originally Posted by georgemk

From the manual

So you need to put the options --field author "name" before the ID not afterwards.

root@1dce1a6e8ae1:/# calibredb --with-library=/books/ set_metadata --field authors "J. D. Robb" 5032
You must specify a record id as the first argument

I also tried to add the path to the metadata file

root@1dce1a6e8ae1:/# calibredb --with-library=/books/ set_metadata 5032 --field authors "J. D. Robb" /books/J.D.\ Robb/Connections\ in\ Death\ \(5032\)/metadata.opf
The OPF file /J. D. Robb does not exist

[kovidgoyal]

calibredb set_metadata -f "authors:Some Author" 1234

where 1234 is the book id.

[n3ssi3]

Awesome! Thank you, works