Reading Calibre DB

[foosion]

I'd like to read the Calibre DB from a python program.

I can get a list of my books with:

import sqlite3

fname = "c:/Calibre Library/metadata.db"
con = sqlite3.connect(fname)
cur = con.cursor()

cur.execute("SELECT * from books")
for item in cur.fetchall():
    print(item)

con.close()

How do I access a custom field? I've created the field "read" which is the date I finished reading the book (or blank)?

Here's a typical output from the above:

(3025, 'A Short History of the Italian Renaissance', 'Short History of the Italian Renaissance, A', '2024-07-06 20:20:52.809814+00:00', '2015-07-15 04:00:00+00:00', 1.0, 'Bartlett, Kenneth R.', '', '', 'Kenneth R.
Bartlett/A Short History of the Italian Rena (3025)', 1, '1e6fc84c-3ab1-459b-810f-543895ac556c', 1, '2024-07-17 01:30:42.096682+00:00')

This seems to be: index, title, title_sort, date_imported, date_published, author_sort, ???, path, ???, date_???

I'd guess this is documented somewhere obvious, but my search skills are failing to find the specific location.

[kovidgoyal]

https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/develop.html
https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/db_api.html

[foosion]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/develop.html
https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/db_api.html

I was hoping there was documentation identifying the fields I listed as ??? and an easy way to access the custom field I created. I'd have thought it would be another line or two of code.

It appears that I have to install the Calibre source and study and use its API?

Thank you for a fabulous and tremendously useful program!

[kovidgoyal]

You dont access it using sqlite. Use the calibre API. it is documented, yes you will need to read some documentation and install calibre.