Search and Replace; delete "author" name from "serie"

roosten · 12-01-2015, 07:59 AM

I've a large collection of books in Calibre that has the 'author' name displayed in the 'serie' field. Too many to do a manual selection.
Hence I'm looking for a search and replace expression that can check the author name from the 'author' field against the text in the 'serie' field and replace or remove that particular string from the 'serie' field.

eschwartz · 12-06-2015, 07:34 PM

You can't really compare two fields.

What you can do, maybe, is the following:

Search field: {template}
Template:

Code:

program: re(field('series'), field('authors'), '')

Search for:

Code:

(.*)

Replace With:

Code:

\1

Destination field: series

...

This should use as the source, a template which regexes out the content of the "authors" field from the series field, and then replace the series field with the contents of that source template.

roosten · 12-07-2015, 05:47 AM

Thanks for the suggestion.
A first attempt with the above scripting didn't quite solve the issue, but I appreciate the approach.
I'll give it some more attempts later using this as a starting point.

Thanks again.

eschwartz · 12-07-2015, 09:55 AM

In what way did it fail? It looks OK to me (and I did a couple tests with my test library), so I'm not sure what could be fixed, but if you tell me how it isn't working for you, I could try again.

roosten · 12-09-2015, 07:03 AM

Thanks for following up.
I'm currently travelling with limited access to my database and even lesser time to run a few examples, but will come back to you after my trip.

roosten · 12-17-2015, 03:47 AM

My bad. It actually works quite well (as you already concluded).

I've created a new test-database with some typical examples and all went well this time.
It might have been an issue with the author sorting or maybe the localized language set of my previous testdatabase.

Great thing is that the script also helps me cleaning up titles containing strings from the author or serie field.

So great thanks for this. You've given me significant quality time back.

eschwartz · 12-17-2015, 11:38 AM

Excellent.

And thanks for getting back with a confirmation.

12-01-2015, 07:59 AM	#1
roosten Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2013 Device: Kobo	Search and Replace; delete "author" name from "serie" I've a large collection of books in Calibre that has the 'author' name displayed in the 'serie' field. Too many to do a manual selection. Hence I'm looking for a search and replace expression that can check the author name from the 'author' field against the text in the 'serie' field and replace or remove that particular string from the 'serie' field.

12-06-2015, 07:34 PM	#2
eschwartz Ex-Helpdesk Junkie Posts: 19,422 Karma: 85397180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)	You can't really compare two fields. What you can do, maybe, is the following: Search field: {template} Template: Code: program: re(field('series'), field('authors'), '') Search for: Code: (.*) Replace With: Code: \1 Destination field: series ... This should use as the source, a template which regexes out the content of the "authors" field from the series field, and then replace the series field with the contents of that source template.

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12-07-2015, 05:47 AM	#3
roosten Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2013 Device: Kobo	Thanks for the suggestion. A first attempt with the above scripting didn't quite solve the issue, but I appreciate the approach. I'll give it some more attempts later using this as a starting point. Thanks again.

12-07-2015, 09:55 AM	#4
eschwartz Ex-Helpdesk Junkie Posts: 19,422 Karma: 85397180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)	In what way did it fail? It looks OK to me (and I did a couple tests with my test library), so I'm not sure what could be fixed, but if you tell me how it isn't working for you, I could try again.

12-09-2015, 07:03 AM	#5
roosten Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2013 Device: Kobo	Thanks for following up. I'm currently travelling with limited access to my database and even lesser time to run a few examples, but will come back to you after my trip.

12-17-2015, 03:47 AM	#6
roosten Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2013 Device: Kobo	My bad. It actually works quite well (as you already concluded). I've created a new test-database with some typical examples and all went well this time. It might have been an issue with the author sorting or maybe the localized language set of my previous testdatabase. Great thing is that the script also helps me cleaning up titles containing strings from the author or serie field. So great thanks for this. You've given me significant quality time back.

12-17-2015, 11:38 AM	#7
eschwartz Ex-Helpdesk Junkie Posts: 19,422 Karma: 85397180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)	Excellent. And thanks for getting back with a confirmation.

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