Hierarchical Custom Composite Columns

[Midge]

I have been successful in creating a custom column that combines other columns. For that I used the one that acts like tags. This is the template:
{#series1:||,}{#series2:||,}{#series3}.

However, when I try to proceed with making the custom column hierarchical, it does not show up in custom metadata and the tags are not draggable.
For example, this is a previous column that works:

and my current one which does not:


Is creating a hierarchy something that you cannot do with custom composite columns, or am I missing something?
Thanks

[kjdavies]

At a guess...

The delimiter for hierarchical tag browser entries is '.', not ','. And ending with '.' causes the hierarchy to break.

That is, "A,B,C." gives you an entry that is "A,B,C."

If instead you do

{#series1:||.}{#series2:||.}{#series3}

You should find it works. Notice that I did not include the '.' at the end of the template. Having '.' at the end of the template forces the result to be treated as a non-hierarchical value. In my test I used a mix of custom and built-in fields:

{#titlecount:||.}{#pagecount:||.}{series:||.}{#pub series:||.}{#pubseries_index}

giving me

• 1
  • 10
    • hf
      • 119222
      • 119223

With the trailing '.', I get

• 1.10.hf.119222.
• 1.10.hf.119223.

Which brings up another observation: this works if and only if your last entry in the template exists. If it doesn't, but one or more of the entries ahead of it does, then you end up with a spurious trailing '.'.

[kjdavies]

Originally Posted by kjdavies

{#titlecount:||.}{#pagecount:||.}{series:||.}{#pub series:||.}{#pubseries_index}

Curious. I see '#pub series' in the post, but I wrote that without the space.

Perhaps different markup...

{#titlecount:||.}{#pagecount:||.}{series:||.}{#pubseries:||.}{#pubseries_index}

Yeah, that looks like it works right.

[Comfy.n]

Originally Posted by kjdavies

Curious. I see '#pub series' in the post, but I wrote that without the space.

I have typed images, not im ages in this post:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...postcount=1166

However I couldn't get rid of that space for the life of me, lol.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kjdavies

{#titlecount:||.}{#pagecount:||.}{series:||.}{#pubseries:||.}{#pubseries_index}

Yeah, that looks like it works right.

Code boxes are also easier to read and copy from, especially when the poster uses a font like TNR.

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kjdavies

Curious. I see '#pub series' in the post, but I wrote that without the space.

Perhaps different markup...

{#titlecount:||.}{#pagecount:||.}{series:||.}{#pubseries:||.}{#pubseries_index}

Yeah, that looks like it works right.

This avoids any extraneous periods by including a preceeding dot only if the column has a value:

{#titlecount:}{#pagecount:|.|}{series:|.|}{#pubseries:|.|}{#pubseries_index|.|}

However, I prefer this GPM template that (I think) makes the intentions explicit.

program:
	list_join('.', $#titlecount, '.', $#pagecount, '.', $series, '.',$#pubseries, '.', $#pubseries_index, '.')

The above can be written as a TPM template if it is embedded with other template expressions:

{:'list_join('.', $#titlecount, '.', $#pagecount, '.', $series, '.',$#pubseries, '.', $#pubseries_index, '.')'}

[Midge]

Originally Posted by kjdavies

Curious. I see '#pub series' in the post, but I wrote that without the space.

Perhaps different markup...

{#titlecount:||.}{#pagecount:||.}{series:||.}{#pubseries:||.}{#pubseries_index}

Yeah, that looks like it works right.

Thanks for your help. The '.' instead of ',' thing should have been obvious to me. I still don't seem to be able to get it to work though. I figure it is probably something wrong with the columns that I am trying to combine. Honestly I'm not very good at this sort of thing.

[kjdavies]

Originally Posted by chaley

This avoids any extraneous periods by including a preceeding dot only if the column has a value:

{#titlecount:}{#pagecount:|.|}{series:|.|}{#pubseries:|.|}{#pubseries_index|.|}

However, I prefer this GPM template that (I think) makes the intentions explicit.

program:
	list_join('.', $#titlecount, '.', $#pagecount, '.', $series, '.',$#pubseries, '.', $#pubseries_index, '.')

The above can be written as a TPM template if it is embedded with other template expressions:

{:'list_join('.', $#titlecount, '.', $#pagecount, '.', $series, '.',$#pubseries, '.', $#pubseries_index, '.')'}

How about

program:
    '.'.join(filter(None, ($#titlecount,$#pagecount,$series,$#pubseries,$#pubseries_index)))

? I think this should make a string concatenating only the non-None values in the list, and prevent leading or trailing '.'.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kjdavies

How about

program:
    '.'.join(filter(None, ($#titlecount,$#pagecount,$series,$#pubseries,$#pubseries_index)))

? I think this should make a string concatenating only the non-None values in the list, and prevent leading or trailing '.'.

Problem: that intermixes python and the GPR template language. The template should be rewritten as

python:
def evaluate(book, context):
    vals = (filter(
                None, 
                (
                    book.get('#myint2'), 
                    book.get('#pagecount'), 
                    book.get('series'), 
                    book.get('#series'),
                    book.get('#series_index')))
                )
    vals = ((str(v) if isinstance(v, (int, float)) else v) for v in vals)
    return '.'.join(vals)

Note: the list_join() template function ignores empty values, not adding them to the result list. None won't be encountered unless you use raw_field() or $$#.

[kjdavies]

Originally Posted by chaley

Problem: that intermixes python and the GPR template language. The template should be rewritten as

python:
def evaluate(book, context):
    vals = (filter(
                None, 
                (
                    book.get('#myint2'), 
                    book.get('#pagecount'), 
                    book.get('series'), 
                    book.get('#series'),
                    book.get('#series_index')))
                )
    vals = ((str(v) if isinstance(v, (int, float)) else v) for v in vals)
    return '.'.join(vals)

Note: the list_join() template function ignores empty values, not adding them to the result list. None won't be encountered unless you use raw_field() or $$#.

My bad, I should've looked it up. I'd assumed list_join was a Python function.

Looking at the documentation, the semantics of list_join seems odd to me... but I think I see now how it works.