[crazygambit]

I checked out the anime regex on this thread, which also appears in the wiki, but it's based on seasons rather than absolute ordering. Since I really didn't want to rename my collection and since I couldn't find any decent regex for absolute number I decided to learn how to do it myself. After banging my head against the wall for 2 days, I finally figured it out. I just have to say the wiki is woefully inadequate to tackle this issue, which a lot of people have been having for years. I guess most have given up and renamed their files. If you haven't yet, then this might be of use. It catches 100% of my episodes, even multi episodes without ever renaming anything. Even difficult to match shows like Macross 7 or Eyeshield 21 are no issue. Specials need to be numbered according to the TVDB if you're using that scraper, though you don't need to add S00. That's more of a scraper than a regex issue. I still have no clue how Anidb deals with specials, so I can't help you there. So without further ado here it is:

Code:

<advancedsettings>
    
<tvshowmatching action="prepend">


<!-- Anime specific matching exclusively for Absolute Ordering. Everything will be matched to season 1, except Specials that will be assigned season 0 -->

<!-- Anime must be contained in a folder called anime (case insensitive) at any dept, to avoid messing with regular TV Shows. You can change it to match your folder sructure. If your anime isn't separate from your other shows then simply delete "Anime" from the regex, but bear in mind it won't play nice with shows with more than 1 season -->

<!-- Files must either have a mkv, mp4, avi or ogm extenion to avoid matching spam files that sometimes come with some downloads like .url and the like. Also optional. Remove (?:(?=.*\.mkv$)|(?=.*\.mp4$)|(?=.*\.avi$)|(?=.*\.ogm$)) if you want to match any extensions. -->

<!-- The last number without brackets not immediately followed by letters other than "v" will be matched. That means shows like Macross 7, Eyeshield 21 or Hunter x Hunter (2011) pose no problem to match. -->

<!-- Specials are automatically asigned to season 0, so there's no need to add "S00" to the filename, but that doesn't affect the match. The file must be in a folder called "Specials" (case insensiive) for each show somewhere inside your anime folder. I recommend numbering after TVDB. -->

<regexp defaultseason="0">(?i)Anime.*Specials(?:(?=.*\.mkv$)|(?=.*\.mp4$)|(?=.*\.avi$)|(?=.*\.ogm$)).+(?=\w)(?&lt;![a-df-z0-9])(\d+)(?&lt;=\d)(?!.*[\\\/])(?![a-uw-z0-9\])}px])</regexp>

        <!-- EG: Anime/Kurenai/Specials/[gleam] Kurenai OVA - 01 [OAD][0e73f000].mkv -->
        


<!-- We are looking for a multi episode with the format Anime/Show 01-02.mkv There can be any number of folders in between and numbers either before or after. It will match only the last set, so in the following file it will pick episodes 08 and 09 for example and not 01 and 12. It will fail on single episodes even if the folder has a range of episodes, so no need to rename anything. -->

<!-- smb://n5200xxx/data/anime/started/hack/[kaa]_hack_twilight_01-12.dvd(complete)/hack_twilight_08-09.dvd(aac)[kaa][06da16fc].ogm -->


<regexp>(?i)()Anime(?:(?=.*\.mkv$)|(?=.*\.mp4$)|(?=.*\.avi$)|(?=.*\.ogm$)).+(?=\w)(?&lt;![a-df-z0-9])(\d+)(\-\d+)(?&lt;=\d)(?!.*[\\\/])(?![a-uw-z0-9\])}px])</regexp>


<!-- This one matches single episodes, always matching the last valid number as the episode. It supports a wide array of formats either with CRC, resolution, hash, etc. or without. -->


<regexp>(?i)()Anime(?:(?=.*\.mkv$)|(?=.*\.mp4$)|(?=.*\.avi$)|(?=.*\.ogm$)).+(?=\w)(?&lt;![a-df-z0-9])(\d+)(?&lt;=\d)(?!.*[\\\/])(?![a-uw-z0-9\])}px])</regexp>

</tvshowmatching>

</advancedsettings>

I wanted to post it here, so people interested would see it, but I don't want to hijack this thread. I'll make a new one to answer any questions you guys might have.