ReplaceMetadata

replace_metadata

## Use regular expressions to find and replace (or remove) metadata.
## For example, you could change Sci-Fi=>SF, remove *-Centered tags,
## etc.  See http://docs.python.org/library/re.html (look for re.sub)
## for regexp details.

## Make sure to keep at least one space at the start of each line and
## to escape % to %%, if used.

## Two, three or five part lines.  Two part effect everything.
## Three part effect only those key(s) lists.
## *Five* part lines.  Effect only when trailing conditional key=>regexp matches
## metakey[,metakey]=>pattern=>replacement[&&conditionalkey=>regexp]

## Note that if metakey == conditionalkey the conditional is ignored.
## You can use \s in the replacement to add explicit spaces.  (The config parser
## tends to discard trailing spaces.)
## replace_metadata <entry>_LIST options: FanFicFare replace_metadata lines
## operate on individual list items for list entries. But if you
## want to do a replacement on the joined string for the whole list,
## you can by using <entry>_LIST. Example, if you added
## calibre_author: calibre_author_LIST=>^(.{,100}).*$=>\1

replace_metadata:
 genre,category=>Sci-Fi=>SF
 Puella Magi Madoka Magica.* => Madoka
 Comedy=>Humor
 Crossover: (.*)=>\1
 title=>(.*)Great(.*)=>\1Moderate\2
 .*-Centered=>
 characters=>Sam W\.=>Sam Witwicky&&category=>Transformers
 characters=>Sam W\.=>Sam Winchester&&category=>Supernatural

A more wordy explanation

replace_metadata lines can take one of three different forms.

The first and simplest is: pattern=>replacement

All metadata items that matches regexp pattern will be replaced using the standard Python regexp library like so: value = re.sub(pattern,replacement,value)

So, for example, if you are offended by the word Furbie and never want to see it anywhere in your metadata, you do:

Furbie=>F*rbie

The second form is: metakey[,metakey]=>pattern=>replacement

The only difference is that you are limiting which metadata items the line will apply do by including one or more metakeys.

Metakey is one of the metadata items defined by FanFicFare (category, genre, characters, etc) or added by extra_valid_entries.

So, for example, if you what Humor converted to Comedy in genre and category:

genre,category=>Humor=>Comedy

The third form is: metakey[,metakey]=>pattern=>replacement&&conditionalkey=>condregexp

This essentially says, "For metadata items metakey, if metadata item conditionalkey matches conditionalkey, replace pattern with replacement.

Now there are three conditions that must be true before the replacement is done.

1. It must be a metadata item metakey,
2. the value must match pattern and
3. the value of metadata item conditionalkey must match condregexp.

 characters=>Sam W\.=>Sam Witwicky&&category=>Transformers
 characters=>Sam W\.=>Sam Winchester&&category=>Supernatural

Replacements are applied in order--so plan accordingly.

Another tip: If you want to be able to test your patterns without hitting your favorite stories again and again, you can use the fake test site and the extracharacters, extracategories, etc parameters. test1.com URLs will generate stories, but not go out to the network.

URL: http://test1.com?sid=12345

[test1.com]
extracharacters:Reginald Smythe-Smythe,Mokona,Harry P.

replace_metadata:
 characters=>Harry P\.=>Harry Potter

Why isn't my replacement working?

Do you understand the regular expression you're trying to use? This a good regex quick start guide.

A couple common 'gotcha's:

If regex special characters appear in the string you're trying to match, you need to escape them by putting a \ before them. Those characters are: [\^$.|?*+()

So for example, if you want to match 'Harry P.' but not 'Harry Pa', your regex should be Harry P\., not just Harry P. because the . is special and matches any character.

Another is '&' (and less commonly '<' and '>'). Because FanFicFare keeps things internally as (X)HTML valid strings, while it looks like that string is just 'This & That', to match it you need the pattern This & That.

Similarly, use < and > instead of '<' and '>'.

For the same reason (FanFicFare keeps things internally as (X)HTML valid strings), when you want & you should substitute to & as well or there may be subtle problems with your files down the road. Example:

replace_metadata:
 category=>Starsky and Hutch=>Starsky & Hutch