Search & Replace doesn't work for quotes

[habanr]

I've discovered that "Search & Replace" function doesn't work for closing quotes >>”<< and for opening >>“<<. Test search using wizard's Regex Builder correctly finds them but quotes replacement doesn't work during the conversion. I have the "Smarten punctuation" function switched off...

[ldolse]

Try using a '\' in front of the quote (in case you're using straight quotes).

If you're using curly quotes I'm not certain why they're not working off the top of my head, but try replacing them with unicode notation:
” = \u201D
“ = \u201C

[habanr]

It doesn't work. As I told before Test function successfully finds quotes, but the result of the conversion is wrong - quotes are unchanged...

[ldolse]

What are you actually typing into the search and replace box, and what in general are you actually trying to attempt?

I just tried this:
(“|”)

And it replaced them fine.

Make sure your input encoding is configured correctly under look and feel.

[habanr]

I've tried this:
Search >>“<< Replace >>|<< Doesn't work (syntax is corect as Regex Builder test finds the quotes)
Search >>a<< Replace >>|<< Works correctly

Generally I try to replace English quotes with their Czech equivalents.

[user_none]

Use (?u) at the beginning of the pattern.

(?u)“

I'll need to look at why it's matching in the Regex Builder. It should not be. You need to manually specify you are using and to match on unicode characters.

[ldolse]

Originally Posted by user_none

Use (?u) at the beginning of the pattern.

(?u)“

I'll need to look at why it's matching in the Regex Builder. It should not be. You need to manually specify you are using and to match on unicode characters.

(?u) only changes things like \w to use unicode character maps, I don't think it tells python the string itself is unicode. The string itself needs to be specified as a unicode string, but I'm pretty sure this happens automatically for these config variables.

Anyway my testing confirmed that unicode characters worked just fine:

(“|”)

Matched all the curly quotes and replaced them with straight quotes in my test (both in the regex builder and the actual conversion). I think something else must be the root cause.

[user_none]

Originally Posted by ldolse

(?u) only changes things like \w to use unicode character maps, I don't think it tells python the string itself is unicode.

You are correct. For some reason I was thinking of u'' when I said (?u). But that's not an issue because the strings are already turned into unicode strings internally.

[habanr]

Hi,
have you already found any solution, how to solve this "quote search & replace" problem?

[ldolse]

You're going to have to supply more details about what you're doing, i.e. what exactly is the source, specific steps you're using for the whole import/conversion process, etc.. I suspect you have some sort of file encoding problem. UTF-8 works fine for us doing the same thing, so the most likely explanation is that your file is not UTF-8 and you haven't specified the correct encoding. Why the Regex wizard is still showing you a match is a bit of a mystery, but that's a slightly different code path from conversion.

[Phate17]

Hello,
I have the same problem. My ebooks are in PDB format with english LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK (Unicode201C - ALT 0147) at the beginning of direct speach and RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK (Unicode201D - ALT 0148) at the ending. I need to change it to czech file format with quotation mark Uicode201E - ALT 0132 at the beginning and quotation mark Unicode201C - ALT 0147 at the ending.

When I search the left english quotation mark in regex builder (I enter ALT 0147 and press TEST) it finds all occurrences and marks them with yellow color. But when I do the same in Search&Replace (search ALT 0147 and replace with WHATEVER CHARACTER e.g. Q ) no changes are made Search of ALT 0148 is the same result.

I must open my ebooks in other text editor, replace quotation marks as I wish and then open it in calibre and convert to my favorit MOBI format.

Thanks for any help

[Manichean]

I'll just quote this instead of retyping it:

Originally Posted by ldolse

You're going to have to supply more details about what you're doing, i.e. what exactly is the source, specific steps you're using for the whole import/conversion process, etc.. I suspect you have some sort of file encoding problem. UTF-8 works fine for us doing the same thing, so the most likely explanation is that your file is not UTF-8 and you haven't specified the correct encoding. Why the Regex wizard is still showing you a match is a bit of a mystery, but that's a slightly different code path from conversion.