Checking with "-mode exp" might overwrite existing epub-file

[drjackyl]

Let me describe what I did to explain the "problem":

Sometimes changes have to be done in an epub-file. So I take the epub-file and unzip it to a folder of it's name. I actually have a droplet either packing a folder as an epub or unpack it if it's an epub-file.

MyAwesomeEBook.epub
unzip MyAwesomeEBook.epub -d MyAwesomeEbook

When I've done my changes and run the epubchecker on the unpacked epub-data, it creates an epub-file in the first place. Unfortunately it creates an epub-file in the folder containing the unpacked-epub-data-folder with the name of the unpacked-epub-data-folder. As it doesn't check, if the file exists, it simply overwrites my original epub, checks it and deletes it afterwards.

java -jar epubcheck-3.0.1.jar -mode exp path/to/epub/MyAwesomeEBook

I suggest to create the temporary epub in a temporary directory or at least do a check, if the file already exists, output a warning and stop.

Last but not least: Thanks for this useful tool to automatically check epubs. Would be horrible to manually do it!

Regards, Felix

[jschvartz]

I would say EpubCheck is not in charge of actually building the Epub, just to check it, which is a full time job. You would have to write the scripts/programms to do the rest of the job.. I personnaly rename the folder before re-creating the Epub, so the original remains untouched. I don't even use anymore the "-mode exp" facility, but zip the folder myself, as part of the script.

[drjackyl]

What I want to point out is that this feature, as it exists, does what I described, which is, in my opinion, a problematic behavior.

I don't argue pro or contra the feature. As long as it exists, it should work properly.

[tofi86]

Hi Felix, thanks for reporting this. As we've already discussed, I totally understand your point of view and will see if we find a solution for the upcoming 3.0.2 release.

Building in temp dir for -mode exp would be the appropriate way. Then we would only need a way to save teh epub file when -save flag is used. Probably by adding a -1 to the name?

java -jar epubcheck-3.0.1.jar -mode exp -save path/to/epub/MyAwesomeEBook would save the file as MyAwesomeEBook.epub if the file doesn't exist yet and as MyAwesomeEBook-1.epub if the file MyAwesomeEBook.epub exists.

Would that be a solution?

[drjackyl]

Hi,

I'm fine with that.

Thanks for your effort, Regards, Felix

[rdeltour]

See also issue to #352 (if the -exp mode doesn't create a ZIP by default, there's no risk of "silent" file overwrite).