Keep raw text in Search & Replace (nbsp and old mobi format)

[Mr Groch]

For some reasons I want to convert to old mobi and I want to use non-breaking spaces. According to Amazon publisher guidelines it is not good in old mobi to use unicode   as non-breaking space, and I should use old and obsolete   named entity. I've checked this on my Paperwhite 4 and this is true - when there is unicode nbsp char, selection and highlighting mechanism threads that char, word before and word after as whole one word...

Problem is that when I try to use \1$nbsp; in calibre Search & Replace in conversion, Calibre will replace this with unicode nbsp char... I want to insert raw '$nbsp;' in output

How to force calibre to use raw text in replace pattern?

[kovidgoyal]

You cannot. Replacement of entitites by unicode codepoints happens else where in the conversion pipeline, and is relied on by the entire conversion pipeline.

[Mr Groch]

OK, I see now - even when I edit epub with built in editor, and change all #160 unicode char to   after converting it will be unicode #160 in new created format...

Can you point me a section of the source code when I need to edit t disable that behaviour? I know Python and I can fork calibre to make this private mod, but will be pleased with a little help

[kovidgoyal]

You cannot disable the behavior it is fundamental to how conversion works. What you could do is modify the MOBI output plugin to put those entities bach right at th eend before it writes out the mobiml markup. See plugins/mobi_output.py

[Mr Groch]

Thanks again, but this still isn't enough... I'm replacing all u'\xa0' with ' ' just before mobimlizer as you suggest, and something is replacing my '&' char with '&' in output mobi. I have also tried to move my code after mobimlizer but with no luck. Where that replacing is done?

EDIT: my replacing is done in i.text and i.tail at:
for x in self.oeb.manifest.items:
if x.media_type in OEB_DOCS:
for body in XPath('//h:body')(x.data):
for i in XPath('descendant::h:*')(body):

[kovidgoyal]

Not before, after.