Why does Edit Meta Information do this?

[louwin]

Using half a dozen Doctor Who Series's I selected 880 files then pressed "E" and selected the "Search and Replace" tab. Changed to "Character Match".

Selected "#genre", entered "Search For:" as "Adult Fiction" and "Replace with:" as "SciFi" and I got what is displayed in the attachment.

I tried several times. I tried naming the search and replace. I came out of Calibre and in again. All sorts....

Thank God I didn't press "Okay" as it would have ruined the field on the 880 books.

I tried the "Test Text" and that was fine (not in attachment)

What am I doing wrong?

I have noticed something like this a few times before but it seemed to come good.

[chaley]

Something damaged the #genre column before the search/replace was used. It appears that all the commas in #genre were replaced by letters from "Doctor Who". I have no idea how this happened. It doesn't happen for me using a similar test.

Questions:
1) What kind of column is #genre? My guess is it is a text column, given that there are no ":::" in the results preview.
2) Had you entered "Doctor Who" (or a phrase that ends with that) into any box on any tab of bulk edit, including search/replace?
3) Does it always happen? If so, run calibre in debug mode (click on the down-arrow next to preferences to do this), and post the results.

[louwin]

I am clueless why/how it happened.

The #genre column is the standard Calibre column that was hidden, I just unhid it

I changed #genre in all files to "Adult Fiction" then selected all my Dr.Who books to change them to SciFi.

I had originally ctrl+clicked 11 Doctor Who series's (880 eBooks) and it happened.

Just guessing but it looked to me (wishful thinking?) like 11 repeats by eleven repeats of the repeats?

I eventually unclicked 10 (so 1 selected) and entered "Adult Fiction" in the search field and NOTHING in the replace filed. The resultant field then became the Series Name (automatically) and I fired it off.

Then I re-editted and entered the series name in the search field and "SciFi" in the replace field and it worked with that series only.

Had to go out so didn't take it any further. Maybe it didn't like the fact that I selected on Series then tried to search and replace the #genre field????

Will try again with 1 then 2 then more series when I have time to scratch myself

[kiwidude]

#genre is not a "standard calibre column". It is a column defined by whoever gave you the library.

[louwin]

Oops, I didn't know that

It was there so I assumed (I know - ass u me)

I assume (again) it is just a text field?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by louwin

I assume (again) it is just a text field?

Normally it is a tags-like field, but yours could be anything. Go to preferences, add your own columns, select the Genre line, and press the I button. You will see the column definition.

[louwin]

Here's the column definition....

Doesn't say much

[chaley]

OK, that is a tags-like column. It can contain multiple values, separated by commas. Search/Replace will operate on each value separately. However, as I don't see any commas in the source, it isn't clear whether this matters.

It isn't at all clear what happened in your example. It seems that the words "Adult Fiction" were added between every letter of the words "Doctor Who". I can make something like this happen if:
- The #genre column contains "Doctor Who".
- Use "character mode" searching
- Leave the "search for" box empty
- Enter "Adult Fiction" into the "replace with" box.

The words "Adult Fiction" will be inserted between every character of "Doctor Who". This is correct and expected behavior. The empty space between each character is being replaced with what is in the "replace with".

I can't see any way that it could happen accidentally. Of course, the fact that I can't see a way doesn't mean that there isn't a way.

[louwin]

Sorry, I can't remember what I did or didn't do any more

I tried ssssoooo many things. Somewhere in my trying I must have pushed "Okay" as approximately 400 books got weird **** in them in the Genre column.

I suspect all (the ones I have looked at?) the interspaced insertions were in "Science Fiction: Doctor Who".

When I remove all the "Adult Fiction" that is what I'm left with. But I could be wrong??

None of the series have that string. They are all "Doctor Who: Something or other"

As far as I know ALL the books had "Adult Fiction" in them as I had just injected this into them.

The genre column would NEVER have contained Doctor Who as seconds earlier I had selected ALL the books and changed the genre column to "Adult Fiction" ready to change select books to "SciFi".

Sequence of events - selected all 9347 books editted Genre column to "Adult Fiction". Scrolled up and down a bit, saw they were as expected. Selected 11 series of Doctor Who:... - 880 books, pressed "E", changed to S & R tab, selected #genre, entered replace with to "SciFi", looked down and saw "SciFi" ad inifinitum (thought it was because the "with" field was unset) entered search with to "Adult Fiction", ready to press Return, looked down and saw the mess in the bottom of the dialogue, paniced and cancelled....

Repeated the second part of the sequence, took a snapshot, tried a few more things, opened a new thread and here we are.

Sorry I am going to concentrate on fixing the mess later.

I am babysitting my grandkids so am on my daughter's laptop, no access to Calibre

[louwin]

Just got home and had a better check of the situation.

About 6000 files have a heavily corrupted "Genre" column.

Files in the Dr.Who series's, files with no series and files with other (than Dr.Who) series's. Files I certainly did not touch, not select....

60% to 70% of the library.

I am renaming through the Genre in the tag browser so fixing it is quicker than through meta data editing

Then I am going to try changing the column definition to straight text and hope the problem goes away

[theducks]

Originally Posted by louwin

Just got home and had a better check of the situation.

About 6000 files have a heavily corrupted "Genre" column.

Files in the Dr.Who series's, files with no series and files with other (than Dr.Who) series's. Files I certainly did not touch, not select....

60% to 70% of the library.

I am renaming through the Genre in the tag browser so fixing it is quicker than through meta data editing

Then I am going to try changing the column definition to straight text and hope the problem goes away

You can not change a column type once made, only change its name.

You can create a new column and copy values over (using Search and Replace) to it

[louwin]

This is how to do it By Someone who did it and didn't want to do it!

1) Select a couple of files with "Adult Fiction" in the Genre column
2) Press "E"
3) Select Search and replace tab
4) Select #genre for Search field:
5) Enter "Adult Fiction" in Search for: field
6) Enter "SciFi" in Replace with: field

If you now look at the Test text and Test result area you will see everything is as should be. But because I don't care what the current Genre is as I want to change it to "SciFi"...

7) Delete the Search for: field....

Look down - ta da!

SciFiASciFidSciFiuSciFilSciFitSciFi SciFiFSciFiiSciFicSciFitSciFiiSciFioSciFinSciFi

To spell it out:-

SciFi A SciFi d SciFi u SciFi l SciFi t SciFi space SciFi F SciFi etc etc

See attachment

This is, of course, on my setup. To test it you will have to duplicate it....

Please confirm this is a bug

Please don't say this is performing to spec

[theducks]

It is (agreed it appears odd ). WAD (Works as designed )

You have no capture pattern set between Paren
If you want a total replacement: Capture but don't use the back reference in the Replace

[chaley]

Originally Posted by louwin

This is how to do it By Someone who did it and didn't want to do it!

...

Please confirm this is a bug

Please don't say this is performing to spec

Unfortunately for you, it is indeed "performing to spec". What you did is exactly what I described in post 8. You asked calibre to replace the <empty value> (the miniscule space between every visible character) with SciFi, and it happily did exactly that.

Although replacing the empty value can sometimes be useful, an argument could be made that calibre shouldn't do it in character mode, because this is considered to be "basic" functionality. Under this argument, the functionality would remain in regexp mode. I will think about this a bit.

[louwin]

Doh!