Phase 2a of the metadata overhaul (plan §2.1-2.3, §2.5-2.9).
The headline bug: ABS writes sidecar series as an array of STRINGS
(["The Witcher #3", ...]); the parser only accepted {series, sequence}
OBJECT arrays, so every ABS-matched book silently lost its series (found
live: 9 sidecars, zero series ingested; only folder-structure Malazan
survived). parseSeriesCandidates now normalizes string arrays, object
arrays and Libation plain strings.
Three-way series assignment (plan §2.2):
- primary bibliographic series -> series/series_number columns
- additional real series (Drizzt: Icewind Dale #1 = Legend of Drizzt #4)
-> alternate_info JSONB, comic-established shape
- ordering constructs ('The Witcher (Reading Order)') -> PlaylistSeries
candidates; NEVER the series column. Detection is explicit-marker-only
((reading order|chronological|publication order|in order|timeline) as
parenthetical/suffix) — precision over recall; a series merely
containing 'timeline' mid-name stays a series.
Sequence policy: leading-number extraction ('Book 2' -> 2, '2,
Dramatized Adaptation' -> 2, '1a' -> 1); lossy extractions preserve the
raw text in alternate_info.series_sequence_raw.
Smart genre (deterministic lexicon): compound Audible blobs split
('Epic, Action & Adventure, Military, Sword & Sorcery' -> 4 candidates),
alias-normalized, format noise demoted ('Audiobook' never wins),
most-specific canonical genre takes the genre column, all candidates
stay in tags.
Language: display names normalize to ISO 639-1 on ingest; ROOT-CAUSED
the update-path drop — CreateMediaItem call site never set Language
(explicit NULL over the column default), the update path did; create
now carries it.
Title-derived series fallback (§2.7): 'Baptism of Fire: The Witcher,
Book 3' 2-level folders split conservatively (only when the post-colon
tail matches ', Book N'), subtitle parsed for series+number, blanks-only
precedence, matching-name number fill, zero display mutation. Works
with no sidecar and no network.
Ingest fixes: subtitle/explicit land in their columns (audio tag
subtitle stops joining into title); full authors[] array (was [0]-
only); sidecar descriptions sanitized via bluemonday UGC policy
(vendored).
metadata_overrides: verified scan-update path already applies
ApplyMetadataOverrides; subtitle/explicit/authors covered by the Phase 1
override adaptation.
Tests: new series_parsing_test.go (string-array sidecar e2e, Drizzt
alternate_info, lossy raw preservation, playlist classification,
title-derived fallback incl. no-mutation + blanks-only, genre lexicon,
language map); audio-tag subtitle pin updated to column behavior;
calibre/ABS 2.5-series_index pins widened per float change (changelog'd
in phase 1).
Deferred to 2b: auto-created playlist collections (§2.4) — settings
toggle, collection upsert, ownership.
John O'Keefe
7e4c97f639