OpenMeta / Finder Tag extraction

[todrobbins]

I didn't see this discussed anywhere else on the forum and thought I'd put in a request, if it's possible, to extract the https://code.google.com/p/openmeta/ / Finder tags on OSX/HFS+. I'd love to be more educated about how this metadata is attached and stored regardless if it's within the scope of ExifTool.

Cheers!

[Phil Harvey]

Interesting.  Thanks for the request.

On OS X, there are many "forks" to a file.  Historically, there were only two, the data and the resource fork.  The data fork is the normal file data.  Apple was nice, and devised a way to allow the resource fork to be accessed through the standard C i/o library, so ExifTool can read metadata from this file.  But I know of no way to access the other forks via standard i/o.  I am guessing that this new openmeta information may be in one of those, which would be a problem for ExifTool.  However, what I have read so far about openmeta doesn't give enough technical information to be able to tell if this is the case.  It would be great if they used the resource fork, but since nobody ever asks my opinion, usually things like this don't go the way I would like.

I'll read more about it later if I get a chance.

- Phil

[Hayo Baan]

Hi Phil, from the description on their website they store the data in the extended attributes: "The metadata is stored in extended attributes (xattr)."

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Hayo,

Thanks.  Now I just need to find out where the extended attributes are stored.

- Phil