Merge does not produce expected output file structure

[2600box]

Hello,

Is there no longer an option to set a twig template for filename output?

I get this error "--filename-template" option does not exist.

Thanks

[sandreas]

Unfortunately there is no context, so I don't know which command you are using but I assume that you are still trying to merge something...

merge does not support a template, but if you specify an output directory, it will keep the original base structure of the source.

Maybe you can try:

m4b-tool merge --help
m4b-tool split --help
m4b-tool chapters --help

to find out more about how m4b-tool works.

[2600box]

Sorry, yes, still trying to merge.

My source files look like this: chapter_0.m4a chapter_1.m4a chapter_2.m4a chapter_3.m4a chapter_4.m4a.

So the output defaults to title only. Is there another way?

I would like to have artist -- title.m4b

[sandreas]

Create a directory artist - title/ and put your files in this directory... e.g.:

- J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter 1/
  - chapter_0.m4a
  - chapter_1.m4a
  - ...

Then use --batch-pattern to convert them. Please read Best Practises carefully.

[2600box]

Hmmm, I thought I was following best practices. As the files appear in en/genre/artist/name/

m4b-tool merge -v --no-conversion --jobs=2 --output-file="output/" --equate=name,album --batch-pattern="en/%g/%a/%n/" en

Following your suggestion here I tried a directory like en/genre/artist -- title/ and then this command: m4b-tool merge -v --no-conversion --jobs=2 --output-file="output/" --batch-pattern="en/%g/%a -- %n/" en ?

Though the metadata inside the file is correct with genre, artist and title so it is being read by this alternative batch-pattern

But the result is still title.m4b is there something I am missing?

[sandreas]

But the result is still title.m4b is there something I am missing?

The result should be:

output/genre/artist -- title.m4b

If you use --batch-pattern="en/%g/%a/%n/", the output should be:

output/genre/artist/title.m4b

Seems that this may also be an edge case that needs to be investigated.

[2600box]

Ok, to be clear here are all the details with verbose log and debug here: http://bashupload.com/pDHjp/debug.tgz

Notably this is from the log:

NOTICE          9ms 1 match for pattern en/%g/%a -- %n/
NOTICE         10ms ================================
NOTICE         10ms merge en/psychology/Paul Bloom -- The Sweet Spot/
NOTICE         10ms   =>  output/psychology/Paul Bloom -- The Sweet Spot/The Sweet Spot.m4b
NOTICE         10ms - name: The Sweet Spot
NOTICE         10ms - artist: Paul Bloom
NOTICE         10ms - genre: psychology

Current structure:

- en/
  - Genre/
    - Artist - Title/
      - chapter_0.m4a
      - chapter_1.m4a
      - ...

Command: m4b-tool merge -v --no-conversion --jobs=2 --output-file="output/" --batch-pattern="en/%g/%a -- %n/" en produces:

Result: output/genre/artist -- title/title.m4b

[sandreas]

Ok, to be clear here are all the details with verbose log and debug here: http://bashupload.com/pDHjp/debug.tgz

Link does not work

Hmmm, I thought I was following best practices. As the files appear in en/genre/artist/name/

So I tried to reproduce this with no luck (I assume that the -- you used was a mistake and it should be a single -:

m4b-tool merge -v --no-conversion --jobs=2 --output-file="output/" --equate=name,album --batch-pattern="en/%g/%a/%n/" en

Result file structure:

tree
.
├── en
│   └── Fantasy
│       └── Jennifer Estep
│           └── Spiders Bite
│               ├── 001.mp3
│               ├── 002.mp3
│               └── cover.jpg
└── output
    └── Fantasy
        └── Jennifer Estep
            └── Spiders Bite
                └── Spiders Bite.m4b

m4b-tool merge -v --no-conversion --jobs=2 --output-file="output/" --equate=name,album --batch-pattern="en/%g/%a - %n/" en

Result file structure:

.
├── en
│   └── Fantasy
│       └── Jennifer Estep - Spiders Bite
│           ├── 001.mp3
│           ├── 002.mp3
│           └── cover.jpg
└── output
    └── Fantasy
        └── Jennifer Estep - Spiders Bite
            └── Spiders Bite.m4b

So it works for me. Could you show me the file structure of your failing example?

[2600box]

-- was not a typo, but I tried with a single -

m4b-tool merge -vvv --debug --tag-debug-path=./debug/ --no-conversion --jobs=2 --output-file="output/" --batch-pattern="en/%g/%a - %n/" en --equate=name,album

Debug:

http://bashupload.com/z0zaO/debug.tgz mirror: https://we.tl/t-eCGrDSCPC5

|-- en
|   `-- psychology
|       `-- Paul\ Bloom\ -\ The\ Sweet\ Spot
|           |-- book.md
|           |-- book.yaml
|           |-- chapter_0.m4a
|           |-- chapter_1.m4a
|           |-- chapter_2.m4a
|           |-- chapter_3.m4a
|           |-- chapter_4.m4a
|           `-- cover.jpg
`-- output
    `-- psychology
        `-- Paul\ Bloom\ -\ The\ Sweet\ Spot
            `-- The\ Sweet\ Spot.m4b

[sandreas]

Mmh, I would say that output/psychology/Paul Bloom - The Sweet Spot/The Sweet Spot.m4b is the expected result... what would you expect?

[2600box]

I need the artist and title in the file name. Like this :

output/psychology/Paul Bloom - The Sweet Spot/Paul Bloom - The Sweet Spot.m4b

Is that possible?

[sandreas]

Is that possible?

Unfortunately, no, not at the moment. The output file naming is partly hardcoded here

• https://github.com/sandreas/m4b-tool/blob/master/src/library/Command/MergeCommand.php#L291

It should be not too hard to implement an --filename-template, I'll treat this as feature request. Is that ok? Pretty likely this will be released in the next weeks.

I investigated further. The batch processing tool does not know the tags of the resulting files, therefore it may be difficult to use a --filename-template... You could only use the parts from the --batch-pattern, so if --batch-pattern does not contain the author, you could not build a folder with it. I take a look on the necessary changes for using the whole output tag for a template, but this may be hard to do.

You could use another tool to rename the file after the encoding has finished. A shell script would do, but if it does not work, you might use exiftool to recursively rename your files.

[sandreas]

After further investigation I found a way to implement this. Was kind of fun to do.

As soon as the next pre-release is out, you should now be able to use

--filename-template="{{outputPath}}{{artist}} - {{title}}"

in merge command.

Additionally with the next pre-release an issue in the --equate option is fixed.