set meta data with ebook-meta and ebook-convert

[krischik]

Hi,

It's me again. I have noticed a problem when setting meta data with ebook-meta or ebook-convert. Sometimes the new meta data is just plain ignored:

>ebook-meta --index=2355 Perry\ Rhodan\ Nr.\ 2355\ -\ Pabel\ Moewig\ Verlag.epub
Original-Metadaten::
	Title               : Perry Rhodan Nr. 2355
	Author(s)           : Pabel Moewig Verlag [Verlag, Pabel Moewig]
	Publisher           : KEP
	Book Producer       : calibre (0.6.33) [http://calibre-ebook.com]
	Tags                : Perry Rhodan, Science-Fiction
	Series              : PRZ34-TERRANOVA #56
	Language            : UND
	Rating              : 8
	Timestamp           : 2009-05-31 16:40:14
	Published           : 2009-05-31 16:40:14

Ge?nderte Metadaten::
	Title               : Perry Rhodan Nr. 2355
	Author(s)           : Pabel Moewig Verlag [Verlag, Pabel Moewig]
	Publisher           : KEP
	Book Producer       : calibre (0.6.33) [http://calibre-ebook.com]
	Tags                : Perry Rhodan, Science-Fiction
	Series              : PRZ34-TERRANOVA #56
	Language            : UND
	Rating              : 8
	Timestamp           : 2009-05-31 16:40:14
	Published           : 2009-05-31 16:40:14

I know that at least ebook-meta is supposed to silently ignore meta data which is not supported by the format. Only in the example above I try to set --series which should work on ePUB. In fact there is already a series set and I only try to change the index. And sometimes it does work. Rather strange.

And: why is the language set to UND?

Martin

[kovidgoyal]

UND is unknown. IIRC you have to set both series and series index for it to stick.

[krischik]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

UND is unknown. IIRC you have to set both series and series index for it to stick.

Even setting both won't work:

>ebook-meta Perry\ Rhodan\ Nr.\ 2300\ -\ Pabel\ Moewig\ Verlag.epub --series="PRZ34-TERRANOVA" --index=1
Original-Metadaten::
	Title               : Perry Rhodan Nr. 2300
	Author(s)           : Pabel Moewig Verlag

Ge?nderte Metadaten::
	Title               : Perry Rhodan Nr. 2300
	Author(s)           : Pabel Moewig Verlag

[krischik]

Here another example. This is just the opf - so I can safely attach the file:

~/Documents/eBooks/Pabel Moewig Verlag/Perry Rhodan Nr. 2300 (212)  Darwin  martin@macpro-eth1  Mo Jan 18 16:45:51  standart  0 
>calibredb show_metadata 212 --as-opf >Perry\ Rhodan\ Nr.\ 2300\ -\ Pabel\ Moewig\ Verlag.opf                        
~/Documents/eBooks/Pabel Moewig Verlag/Perry Rhodan Nr. 2300 (212)  Darwin  martin@macpro-eth1  Mo Jan 18 16:45:59  standart  0 
>ebook-meta Perry\ Rhodan\ Nr.\ 2300\ -\ Pabel\ Moewig\ Verlag.opf --language=de             
Original-Metadaten::
	Title               : Perry Rhodan Nr. 2300
	Author(s)           : Pabel Moewig Verlag [Verlag, Pabel Moewig]
	Publisher           : KEP
	Book Producer       : calibre (0.6.34) [http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net]
	Tags                : Perry Rhodan, Science-Fiction
	Series              : PRZ34-TERRANOVA #1
	Language            : UND
	Rating              : 8
	Timestamp           : 2009-05-31 16:40:00
	Published           : 2009-05-31 16:40:00

Ge?nderte Metadaten::
	Title               : Perry Rhodan Nr. 2300
	Author(s)           : Pabel Moewig Verlag [Verlag, Pabel Moewig]
	Publisher           : KEP
	Book Producer       : calibre (0.6.34) [http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net]
	Tags                : Perry Rhodan, Science-Fiction
	Series              : PRZ34-TERRANOVA #1
	Language            : UND
	Rating              : 8
	Timestamp           : 2009-05-31 16:40:00
	Published           : 2009-05-31 16:40:00
~/Documents/eBooks/Pabel Moewig Verlag/Perry Rhodan Nr. 2300 (212)  Darwin  martin@macpro-eth1  Mo Jan 18 16:46:03  standart  0

Note that I have 200 of those - so fixing them all with the GUI is not feasible.

Regards

Martin

[krischik]

When I wanted to try setting the author and title which should be supported by any format I got:

>ebook-meta Perry\ Rhodan\ Nr.\ 2300\ -\ Pabel\ Moewig\ Verlag.epub --authors="Robert Feldhoff" --title="Vorboten des Chaos"
Original-Metadaten::
	Title               : Perry Rhodan Nr. 2300
	Author(s)           : Pabel Moewig Verlag

Ge?nderte Metadaten::
	Title               : Perry Rhodan Nr. 2300
	Author(s)           : Pabel Moewig Verlag

And with some more experimenting I found the bug. ebook-meta is honouring the "Set metadata from filename only" GUI flag. I had this flag set because I wanted to discard buggy meta data on initial import and then fix them with ebook-meta and calibredb.

Now in my understanding the command-line tool should not honour a GUI flag. If this can not be fixed easily then at least a warning should be displayed to inform the user that meta data is read from file-name only.

Martin

[kovidgoyal]

ebook-meta doesn't set metadata in OPF files. There was a bug in it that could affect setting series info in other files, which I will fix for the next release.

[krischik]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

ebook-meta doesn't set metadata in OPF files.

I noticed something else as well: I a directory contains an OPF file then ebook-meta does not work properly.

I noticed while debugging the following code:

	    ebook-meta						\
		....							\
		"${File_Name:r:t}.epub"				;
              
	    ebook-meta						\
		--to-opf="${File_Name:r:t}.opf"			\
		"${File_Name:r:t}.epub"				;
	    calibredb set_metadata "${ID}" "${File_Name:r:t}.opf"

It works the first time - but because I forgot to delete the OPF file it won't work the 2nd time. That is: the first ebook-meta won't work as the old content of the opf file take priority.

Martin

PS: Windows users: calibredb set_metadata might rename the directory - so you should not cd into the directory.