Wish: Swap first name - surname at the selected records

[Wolfgang Zeiger]

It would be very nice if there would be a possibility to quick convert
selectet metadata between "surname, firstname" and "firstname surname" notation.
It costs a lot of time to sync a bigger amount of records to
the same format. Does'nt matter witch format one prefer.

Greetings and thanks from Germany
Wolfgang

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

You can do this using the search and replace functionality in the bulk metadata
edit dialog (right click the edit metadata button to get this dialog).

 status invalid

[Wolfgang Zeiger (wolfgang-zeiger1)]

Thank you for fast response.
but at "search and replace" ist no option to switch between "surname, firstname" and "firstname surname" syntax.
If I import 400 books, half of them are recognized "surname, firstname" and the other ones "firstname surname".
To sync this to a unique type i have to edit 200 entrys manualy. "search and replace" would only helping if all of the
books is from the same author. But this is not the fact.

Its a similar problem/fix as the implemented switch autor <-> titele.

Greetings
Wolfgang

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

In the search field enter (\S+),\s+(\S+) and in the replace field enter \2 \1

[Wolfgang Zeiger (wolfgang-zeiger1)]

Thank you for response. I'am not familiar with regular expressions, but this one not works correct.
The author "Robb, J. D." will be converted to "J. Robb D." instead of "J. D. Robb".
Only a view people are familiar with regular expressions and I think if you could implement a otion like for switching artist<->title it would be usefull for many people.

So, and i also want to thank you very much for your great work witch calibre.

Greetings
Wolfgang

[John (cwavontuur123)]

I appreciate the answer given as it does solve a number of mismatches. And it seems we are close to a complete solution.

Original answer: In the search field enter (\S+),\s+(\S+) and in the replace field enter \2 \1

What needs to be added/changed to move all text behind the "", "" to the end of the field

So the author "Robb, J. D." will be converted to "J. D. Robb" instead of "J. Robb D.".

Bgds, John