[GUI Plugin] Modify ePub

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Final regex:

<span[^<>]*>((?:(?!<(?:span|/span)>).)*)</span>

Doesn't work if the inner span has any attributes.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

Doesn't work if the inner span has any attributes.

I just noticed -- and fixed -- that.

Just don't close the span tag (in the negative lookahead), we don't need that to match anyway.

[Perkin]

One thing I did for a Sigil plugin (written in Python), that would delete empty spans, was to cycle through storing all the tags and text, giving each a number, and a pir number (initialised at 0), then run through and when it came to an end span, work backward to find the previous unpaired span, then continuing on through to end of file.

Then remove all the empty spans and their end tags, then rewrite the file back in order.

You could do something similar to remove *your* desired spans.

the plugin was in the post here if you want to see what I did. [And see better than how it's worded here ]

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I just noticed -- and fixed -- that.

Just don't close the span tag (in the negative lookahead), we don't need that to match anyway.

The problem is, your regex still isn't doing what it would need to do. The challenge is to remove a specific set of SPANs, namely those matching the form

<span class="koboSpan" id="koboxxx">content</span>

...regardless of whether the content itself has SPANs, and allowing for the specific ID value to vary.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

The problem is, your regex still isn't doing what it would need to do. The challenge is to remove a specific set of SPANs, namely those matching the form

<span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.2.1">content</span>

...regardless of whether the content itself has SPANs.

Since I don't have a Kobo, I was merely suggesting general methods of hunting spans.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Final regex:

<span[^<>]*>((?:(?!<(?:span|/span)).)*)</span>

Can be edited to fill in any required classes/ids with ease :

<span{ kobo-specific info goes here}[^<>]*>((?:(?!<(?:span|/span)).)*)</span>

[PeterT]

Actually Rev. Bob, the Kobo span's (at least in the books I examined) were of the form
<span id="kobo.114.1">...</span>, so my approach to looking for those was

<span                ## look for <span
[^>]+?               ## then one or more character that is not the closing >
                     ## (there will always be at least one; the space after
                     ## the <span )
id="kobo             ## the start of the Kobo id assigned to this span
[\d.]+               ## the numeric and dotted span number
[^>]+?               ## then everything up to the the >
                     ## (always at least one; the " after the id)
>                    ## the closing symbol of the <span tag

which in theory should handle both the format I found and your example.

[eschwartz]

@PeterT, how does my regex do?

[PeterT]

When I tried it in calibre ebook-edit it failed On the example that has the nested spans, it fails the same as all the other attempts I have tried. I'm going to have to bite the bullet and modify this plugin and try it there.

-----

Retried with

<span[^<>]*>((?:(?!<(?:span|/span)).)*)</span>

This matches the 1st and 3rd span's I had above

<span id="kobo.114.1">I don’t go in for ‘lawn maintenance’, though — all that weeding and feeding.</span>
and
<span id="kobo.114.3"> As Vita Sackville-West said, ‘A weed is only a plant in the wrong place.’ To which we should add: ‘or one for which we haven’t yet discovered the use’.</span>

however on the 2nd span

<span id="kobo.114.2"> I prefer my ‘weeds’: the clover, which keeps the grass naturally green with its nitrogen-fixing nodules; the daisy, opening and closing each day (its name comes from the Old English <em>daeges <span class="ent1">ē</span>age</em>, meaning ‘the day’s eye’); the little blue-purple <em>Prunella</em>, known as ‘self-heal’, used to treat sore throats, mouth <a id="page_184"></a>ulcers and open wounds — and still used in modern herbal medicine as an astringent for external or internal wounds.</span>

just matches the interior span

<span class="ent1">ē</span>

Again; this testing is just being done within the confines of ebook-edit

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by PeterT

When I tried it in calibre ebook-edit it failed On the example that has the nested spans, it fails the same as all the other attempts I have tried. I'm going to have to bite the bullet and modify this plugin and try it there.

-----

Retried with

<span[^<>]*>((?:(?!<(?:span|/span)).)*)</span>

This matches the 1st and 3rd span's I had above

<span id="kobo.114.1">I don’t go in for ‘lawn maintenance’, though — all that weeding and feeding.</span>
and
<span id="kobo.114.3"> As Vita Sackville-West said, ‘A weed is only a plant in the wrong place.’ To which we should add: ‘or one for which we haven’t yet discovered the use’.</span>

however on the 2nd span

<span id="kobo.114.2"> I prefer my ‘weeds’: the clover, which keeps the grass naturally green with its nitrogen-fixing nodules; the daisy, opening and closing each day (its name comes from the Old English <em>daeges <span class="ent1">ē</span>age</em>, meaning ‘the day’s eye’); the little blue-purple <em>Prunella</em>, known as ‘self-heal’, used to treat sore throats, mouth <a id="page_184"></a>ulcers and open wounds — and still used in modern herbal medicine as an astringent for external or internal wounds.</span>

just matches the interior span

<span class="ent1">ē</span>

Again; this testing is just being done within the confines of ebook-edit

Well, I didn't expect it to match the outer span, since we specifically excluded those (to prevent span mismatches). But since we delete the inner span, the next pass should pick it up, right?

Then we just keep passing over the book till no results are found.

[PeterT]

ugh.. correct!

Of course, the issue is now that you actually don't want to remove those inner spans for the original requirements; only the Kobo added ones that exist to provide bookmarking support within the ACCESS engine.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Perkin

the plugin was in the post here if you want to see what I did. [And see better than how it's worded here ]

If I grok that script correctly, it looks like I can expand it to remove the Kobo spans just by changing this line (23):

if entity == '<span>':

to this:

if entity == '<span>' or entity[:17] == '<span class="kobo' or entity[:15] == '<span id="kobo.':

In other words, match no-attribute spans, spans where the first attribute is a class beginning with 'kobo', and spans where the first attribute is an ID beginning with 'kobo.' - yes?

If that'll do the trick, it should match the Kobo books I've seen (class first), those PeterT's got (id first), and it'll strip out empty spans in the bargain. Not bad for one changed line...

ETA: Never mind; the further enhancement I had in mind wouldn't work. Ignore this ETA line.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by PeterT

ugh.. correct!

Of course, the issue is now that you actually don't want to remove those inner spans for the original requirements; only the Kobo added ones that exist to provide bookmarking support within the ACCESS engine.

How is this?

<span{ kobo-specific info goes here}[^<>]*>((?:(?!<(?:span|/span){ kobo-specific info goes here}).)*)</span>

[Perkin]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

If I grok that script correctly, it looks like I can expand it to remove the Kobo spans just by changing this line (23):

if entity == '<span>':

to this:

if entity == '<span>' or entity[:17] == '<span class="kobo' or entity[:15] == '<span id="kobo.':

In other words, match no-attribute spans, spans where the first attribute is a class beginning with 'kobo', and spans where the first attribute is an ID beginning with 'kobo.' - yes?

If that'll do the trick, it should match the Kobo books I've seen (class first), those PeterT's got (id first), and it'll strip out empty spans in the bargain. Not bad for one changed line...

ETA: Never mind; the further enhancement I had in mind wouldn't work. Ignore this ETA line.

Yep, that should do it.

IIRC - When doing it originally (ages ago) I was going to add a few other cases that may have been useful, but left it as it was as it worked as needed at the time.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Perkin

Yep, that should do it.

IIRC - When doing it originally (ages ago) I was going to add a few other cases that may have been useful, but left it as it was as it worked as needed at the time.

Now I just have to figure out how to make it work with Calibre instead of the now-discontinued Sigil...

[Perkin]

All I can think of at present (not in a programming frame of mind at moment) is...

Either look through and see if you can 'piggy-back' one of this (or other) plug-in functions, or add your own function, or do the same to one of the editor functions, or wait for Kovid to add PI functionality into editor.

I suppose it will need to be a function that receives the raw html file(s) that need to be worked on, unless you can adapt it yourself.

I haven't done much programming over the last 6+ months, switched over to a mac and haven't got into coding on it yet, and am not currently 'with it'.

Hope this gives you an idea, and it's work/do-able.