How to get author data from folder name? (importing a lot of cbz)

[Wimi_Bussard]

Hi,
I have got a little problem and I hope you guys can help me out.

There is a huge collection of cbz-files which I want to catalogue in calibre. Unfortunately, the files themselves do not contain any metadata such as "author". Instead you can find the files in the their author's folder.

Example: Author A has written three books B1, B2 and B3. There is one folder called "Author A" which contains all three books.

There are a hella lot of them, so importing them as usual would result in countless hours of re-tagging the files with "author" which I want to avoid. So, here is my question: Is there any way to use the folders' names with the information of the author?
(or in other words: Can Calibre automatically tag the files with the author-data from their folders?)

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Wimi_Bussard

Hi,
I have got a little problem and I hope you guys can help me out.

There is a huge collection of cbz-files which I want to catalogue in calibre. Unfortunately, the files themselves do not contain any metadata such as "author". Instead you can find the files in the their author's folder.

Example: Author A has written three books B1, B2 and B3. There is one folder called "Author A" which contains all three books.

There are a hella lot of them, so importing them as usual would result in countless hours of re-tagging the files with "author" which I want to avoid. So, here is my question: Is there any way to use the folders' names with the information of the author?
(or in other words: Can Calibre automatically tag the files with the author-data from their folders?)

@Wimi_Bussard - one way would be to use an OS level renamer that has the ability to include parent folder name in the rename, so that you end up with file names like "Author A - B1".

Then you could use a template in Add Books such as (?P<author>[^_]+) - (?P<title>.+) and use this add option



BR

[theducks]

Just clarify:
Calibre is Path unaware. Onlu the filename is usable
The method BR suggested is a good way to work around this.

If the folders were fairly densely populated, you could import 1 folder at a time and bulk Metadata edit change the Author. spin, rinse, repeat

[Wimi_Bussard]

Okay, thanks for clarifying. I will try to play with the file names a little bit. I guess batch renaming should still be more comfortable than importing them folderwise as there a many folders with only one file in it. T.T

[drjenkins]

If you don't already have a favorite batch renamer you might consider AdvancedRenamer:
http://www.advancedrenamer.com/

It's free and it has the specific ability to rename a file using folder names. It also handles regex for complex file renaming.

[Wimi_Bussard]

Originally Posted by drjenkins

If you don't already have a favorite batch renamer you might consider AdvancedRenamer:
http://www.advancedrenamer.com/

It's free and it has the specific ability to rename a file using folder names. It also handles regex for complex file renaming.

Thanks, that's the tool I used, too. I only have got one problem, I don't get the regex commands of calibre.

My cbz-files do have this name pattern: [Author A (pseudonym if available)] Title YXZ [random tag: e.g. translated] (<-- square brackets!)

As it does not work with this regex expression "(?P<author>[^_]+) - (?P<title>.+)", I had to either change the regex or the name. Sadly, I wasn't able to change the regex (though I tried), because I don't quite understand this stuff. So I had to change the names, but this is kinda time consuming.

Is there a way to change the regex so it fits the required pattern? Sorry for having a lot of questions .

PS: It does suffice if calibre can extract the whole author part. I can re-tag the pseudonyms later manually T.T, shouldn't take me thaaat long ^^'.

Many thanks! (I will try to understand this regex stuff, too, could be useful *sigh*)

[eschwartz]

How does this look? (EDIT: fixed unescaped brackets)

\[(?P<author>[^\]]+)\] (?P<title>[^\]]+) \[(?P<tags>.+)\]

Matches:

[author_fn author_ln (optional_pseudonym)] title [tag1, tag2]

It assumes there MUST be a tag(s), but that can be made optional. Also, I don't know how you handle pseudonyms, but you cannot use custom columns in an Add regex so I just matched the pseudonym in with the author name. You can fix that manually later.


More about regex, if you are interested: http://regular-expressions.info

[Wimi_Bussard]

Hi, I've tested everything and so far it is working fine. OFC the inconsistent naming methods of my folders aren't making it easy for me, but it's doable ^^. (some are just named in a completely different way T.T)

I had to change your code a little bit, though, eschwartz. It seems that we do need some backslashes in front of the squared brackets, because squared brackets are something special and therefore not recognized as simple letters/chars (I kinda did my homework, though I can't build complex expressions yet lol).

Thanks, everyone, we were on the right track!

[crnirg]

Maybe in TC -> [P] - [N]

Sorry if I miss.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Wimi_Bussard

Hi, I've tested everything and so far it is working fine. OFC the inconsistent naming methods of my folders aren't making it easy for me, but it's doable ^^. (some are just named in a completely different way T.T)

I had to change your code a little bit, though, eschwartz. It seems that we do need some backslashes in front of the squared brackets, because squared brackets are something special and therefore not recognized as simple letters/chars (I kinda did my homework, though I can't build complex expressions yet lol).

Thanks, everyone, we were on the right track!

How mortifying. Good catch.


Glad I could help.