Calibre will not add books correctly

[Azrael1018]

I made the mistake of getting Calibre and loading 1000's of books without realizing what I was doing. Consequently, MANY book came in with author in title field and vice versa ... series+author in title field, etc.

I saved my entire library to disk with the intention of cleaning up the folders and field names so that the preferences would work and distribute information to the correct fields in Calibre.

I got a file/folder bulk renamer to help with the job.

All well and good.

Tested a couple Calibre saved folders (and files) with renamer - OK

Tried to add to my Calibre library using Add Books, Option 2.

No Good!

e.g. G:\Test Rename\Isaac Asimov\Isaac Asimov\Isaac Asimov - Black Widowers 01 - Tales of the Black Widowers.lit

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

Put file name in test and everything seemed to distribute correctly
Tales... in Title
Isaac... in Author
Black... in Series
1.0 in Series Index

However, back on the main screen, Asimov, Isaac - Black Widowers 01 - Tales of the Black Widowers show up as Title;
Isaac Asimov - Black Widowers 01 as Author
Nothing in Series!

I have it set to NOT read metadata.

What am I doing wrong?

Help

btw, I would have included screen images, but I cannot seem to get get my PrtScrn to work.

David

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by Azrael1018

What am I doing wrong?

Do you have .opf files stored with your ebooks? Calibre will read those files during import in preference to your regex for author/title.

[Azrael1018]

Yes I do. As a matter of fact, I just discovered this a couple minutes prior to your reply.

So, just delete all the .opf file in the thousands of directories and it should work correctly?

I just tried it with the book in question and it did seem to work.

Is there a way in Calibre to tell it to ignore the .opf files?

Thanks for your help.

David

[penguinaka]

Originally Posted by Starson17

Do you have .opf files stored with your ebooks? Calibre will read those files during import in preference to your regex for author/title.

If that's the case There is a check box you can uncheck/check to read the literal file name information over whats contained inside the file.

Another thing you might check is down on the bottom left the pull down for manage authors. make sure your using sort by authors and not author_sort.

and in the tweeks section of preferences check your author sort name preferences: I import my directly as spelled out and use

author_sort_copy_method = 'copy'

Also I plugged your regex into calibre to test and it comes up invalid...

use this:

Removes Brackets in series - leaves anything in brackets in title
^(?P<author>[^-]+)(\s*-\s*(\[?(?P<series>[^-0-9]+)\s*(?P<series_index>[0-9.]+)?]?)?)?.*?-\s*(?P<title>[^-]+)

or

Removes brackets around series - deletes anything in brackets in title

^(?P<author>[^-]+)(\s*-\s*(\[?(?P<series>[^-0-9]+)\s*(?P<series_index>[0-9.]+)?]?)?)?.*?-\s*(?P<title>[^\]{[()]+\w)

some other regex can be found here:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=138792

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by penguinaka

If that's the case There is a check box you can uncheck/check to read the literal file name information over whats contained inside the file.

I don't think you understood my comment. The checkbox you are referring to selects between internal metadata (stored in the ebook) and filename-based metadata (metadata created from the filename and your regex). However, that selection doesn't matter in certain circumstances. One of those circumstances is when you choose "Add books from directories, one book per directory" and a matching .opf file exists.

If you choose that option and an .opf file exists, the metadata in filename or internally stored is overridden by the contents of the .opf file. (IIRC, it's actually a bit weird, as the metadata from filename/internal is used to warn you about duplicates, while the opf metadata is what is actually used). I don't believe the .opf override applies to drag/drop book adds.

The OP said:

Tried to add to my Calibre library using Add Books, Option 2.

and "Option 2" is exactly the option where the opf override applies. That's why I asked if he had .opf files. It seemed likely, as the OP also said:

I saved my entire library to disk

and saving to disk will create opf files by default.