Biblatex: Remove comma after andothers / et al.? Only if editor field is used

Question

I need a pretty specific human-science citation style, that's why things got a bit difficult. Most of the times it works, but now I've got a problem: sometimes a book as only one or more editors, which get then printed instead of the authors (when you leave the author field empty). Now something strange happend. When I have four authors, it will print Fischer, Wolfgang et al.: Title and so on. When I don't fill in the author and want to add four or more editors, i get this: Fischer, Wolfgang et al., (Hgg.): Title and so on. It should be: Fischer, Wolfgang et al. (Hgg.): Title ... . Strangely, when I type in author and editor (inbook or incollection usually, but also book class) I get: Author: Title. In: Editor et al. (Hgg.): Booktitle. - as it should be (no extra comma after et al.). How do I get rid of this specific extra comma?

MWE (sorry it's very long because of the complicated citation-style):

\begin{filecontents}{MWE.bib}
@book{Fischer:EWSG,
    editor = {Wolfram Fischer and Jan A. van Houtte and Hermann Kellenbenz and Ilja Mieck and Friedrich Vittinghoff},
    title = {Europäische Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum ersten Weltkrieg},
    subtitle = {Handbuch der Europäischen Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte},
    date = {1985},
    location = {Stuttgart},
}
@book{Pfister:Strom,
    author = {Christian Pfister and Muster, Hans and Muster, Beat and Muster, Friedrich},
    title = {Im Strom der Modernisierung},
    subtitle = {Bevölkerung, Wirtschaft und Umwelt 1700-1914},
    booktitle = {Geschichte des Kantons Bern seit 1798, Bd. 4},
    editor = {Junker, Beat and Pfister, Christian and Muster, Hans and Muster, Beat},
    date = {1995},
    location = {Bern},
}
\end{filecontents}

\documentclass[11pt, a4paper, tablecaptionabove]{scrartcl} 
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
%=============BIBLIOGRAPHIE, ZITIERWEISE=================== %
\usepackage[babel,german=guillemets]{csquotes}
\usepackage[%
style=alphabetic,
style=verbose-ibid,
labeldate,
dashed=false, %bei mehreren Werken desselben Autors kein Strich
backend=bibtex8,
idemtracker=false,
ibidtracker=constrict,
citepages=omit,
]{biblatex}

\usepackage{xpatch}

%Hg. bzw Hgg. in Klammern hinter Herausgeber, statt davor und vor Titel
\renewbibmacro*{byeditor+others}{%
    \ifnameundef{editor}
    {}
    {\printnames[byeditor]{editor}%
        \setunit{\addspace}%
        \usebibmacro{editor+othersstrg}%
        \clearname{editor}%
        \newunit}%
    \usebibmacro{byeditorx}%
    \usebibmacro{bytranslator+others}
    \setunit{\addcolon\space}
    \usebibmacro{booktitle}}
\xpatchbibmacro{byeditor+othersstrg}{\printtext}{\printtext[parens]}{}{}

\DefineBibliographyStrings{german}{%
    andothers = {et\ al\adddot}, %et al. statt u.a.
    editor = {\mkbibparens{Hg\adddot}}, %Hg. statt Hrsg.
    editors = {\mkbibparens{Hgg\adddot}}, %Hgg. plural
    byeditor = {\mkbibparens {Hg\adddot}}, 
}
\DeclareFieldFormat{postnote}{#1} %unterdrückt Präfix S.
\DeclareFieldFormat{multipostnote}{#1} %unterdrückt Präfix S.
\DeclareNameAlias{default}{last-first} %Autoren immer Nachname, Vorname sortieren
\renewbibmacro*{cite:short}{%
    \printnames{labelname}%
    \setunit*{\nameyeardelim}%
    \iffieldundef{labelyear}
    {}
    {\printtext[\addcolon]{\printtext[bibhyperlink]{%
                \printfield{labelyear}%
                \printfield{extrayear}}}}}

%Edition Feld superscript, wenn erlaubt
\DeclareFieldFormat{edition}{%
    \ifinteger{#1}
    {\textsuperscript{#1}}

    {\isdot\setunit{}}}

%\DeclareNameFormat{default}{%
%\usebibmacro{name:last-first}{#1}{#3}{#5}{#7}%
%\usebibmacro{name:andothers}}
\renewcommand{\multinamedelim}{\addsemicolon\space} %Semikolon zum trennen der Autoren
\renewcommand{\finalnamedelim}{\addsemicolon\space}
\renewcommand{\labelnamepunct}{\addcolon\space} %Zwischen Autor und Titel Doppelpunkt, kein Punkt
\renewcommand{\postnotedelim}{\addcolon\space} %Zwischen Jahrzahl und Seitenzahl Doppelpunkt, kein Komma
\renewcommand{\nametitledelim}{\addspace}
\renewbibmacro*{publisher+location+date}{% %Zwischen Ort und Jahr kein Komma
    \printlist{location}%
    {\setunit*{\addspace}}
    \printfield{edition}%
    \usebibmacro{date}%
    \newunit}

%überflüssiges Editionsfeld entfernen
\newcommand{\replaceedition}[1]
{%
    \xpatchbibdriver{#1}
    {\printfield{edition}%
        \newunit}
    {}%
    {}
    {\typeout{failed to patch driver #1}}
}
\replaceedition{book}
\replaceedition{collection}
\replaceedition{inbook}
\replaceedition{incollection}
\replaceedition{manual}

\renewbibmacro*{maintitle+booktitle}{%
    \iffieldundef{maintitle}
    {}
    {\usebibmacro{maintitle}%
        \newunit\newblock
        \iffieldundef{volume}
        {}
        {\printfield{volume}%
            \printfield{part}%
            \setunit{\addcolon\space}}}%
    %\usebibmacro{booktitle}%
    \newunit}

\xpatchbibdriver{inbook}{%
    \usebibmacro{maintitle+booktitle}%
    \newunit\newblock
    \usebibmacro{byeditor+others}%
}%
{%
    \usebibmacro{byeditor+others}%
    \setunit{\addcolon\space}\newblock
    \usebibmacro{maintitle+booktitle}%
}%
{}{}%

\xpatchbibdriver{inbook}{%
    \newunit\newblock
    \usebibmacro{chapter+pages}%
}%
{%
    \addcolon\space
    \usebibmacro{chapter+pages}%
}%
{}{}

\xpatchbibdriver{inbook}{%
    \newunit
    \iffieldundef{maintitle}
}%
{%
    \setunit{\addcomma\space}
    \iffieldundef{maintitle}
}%
{}{}

\xpatchbibdriver{incollection}{%
    \usebibmacro{maintitle+booktitle}%
    \newunit\newblock
    \usebibmacro{byeditor+others}%
}%
{%
    \usebibmacro{byeditor+others}%
    \setunit{\addcolon\space}\newblock
    \usebibmacro{maintitle+booktitle}%
}%
{}{}%

\xpatchbibdriver{incollection}{%
    \newunit\newblock
    \usebibmacro{chapter+pages}%
}%
{%
    \addcolon\space
    \usebibmacro{chapter+pages}%
}%
{}{}

\xpatchbibdriver{incollection}{%
    \newunit
    \iffieldundef{maintitle}
}%
{%
    \setunit{\addcomma\space}
    \iffieldundef{maintitle}
}%
{}{}

\xpatchbibdriver{inproceedings}{%
    \usebibmacro{maintitle+booktitle}%
    \newunit\newblock
    \usebibmacro{byeditor+others}%
}%
{%
    \usebibmacro{byeditor+others}%
    \setunit{\addcolon\space}\newblock
    \usebibmacro{maintitle+booktitle}%
}%
{}{}%

\xpatchbibdriver{inproceedings}{%
    \newunit\newblock
    \usebibmacro{chapter+pages}%
}%
{%
    \addcolon\space
    \usebibmacro{chapter+pages}%
}%
{}{}

\xpatchbibdriver{inproceedings}{%
    \newunit
    \iffieldundef{maintitle}
}%
{%
    \setunit{\addcomma\space}
    \iffieldundef{maintitle}
}%
{}{}

%Titel nicht in Anführungszeichen; S. vor Seitenangabe entfernen
\DeclareFieldFormat[inproceedings]{title}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat[inproceedings]{pages}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat[inbook]{title}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat[inbook]{pages}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat[incollection]{title}{#1} 
\DeclareFieldFormat[incollection]{pages}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat[article]{title}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat[article]{pages}{#1}


%\renewcommand{\nametitledelim}{\space}

% Titel nicht schräg
\DeclareFieldFormat{title}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat{citetitle}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat{booktitle}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat{maintitle}{#1}

% Journal Titel nicht schräg
\DeclareFieldFormat{journaltitle}{#1}

\bibliography{MWE} %name des .bib-Files

%=============ENDE BIBLIOGRAPHIE, ZITIERWEISE=================== %

\begin{document}
\autocite{Pfister:Strom}
\autocite{Fischer:EWSG}

\printbibliography
\end{document}

This gets me the following: On the top you can see the et. al., in front of the (Hgg.) - the comma should not be there. On the bottom you can see the et al. before the (Hgg.) in the bottom line, without comma.

Answer 1

I had a similar problem and could solve it by adding a "\nopunct" :

\DefineBibliographyStrings{german}{%
andothers = {et\ al\adddot\nopunct}, %et al. statt u.a.

In biblatex-documentation they define:

\nopunct Adds an internal marker which will cause the next punctuation command to print nothing.

Hope this helps.