I'm trying to write a user-defined tag that will record the ID used by Apple Photos in its database. An example ID is "aqqYIEgwQCS+MZY9JfxTjA". so just text. My config file is:
%Image::Exiftool::UserDefined = (
'Image::Exiftool::XMP::xmp' => {
applePhotosID => { Name => 'applePhotosID' },
},
);
1;
When I run this command: /usr/local/bin/exiftool -config customConfigPath -xmp-xmp:applePhotosID=itemID
I get this error:
error "Photos got an error: Unrecognized character \\xE2; marked by <-- HERE after <-- HERE near column 2 at /Users/xxxxxxxx/Pictures/Exported/customConfig line 2.
Warning: Tag 'xmp-xmp:applePhotosID' is not defined
Nothing to do." number 1
Help?
Also, while I'm here, can you confirm this is the write type of tag to use (XMP) for this purpose?
And, will this be able to write a user defined tag no matter the type of file (video or photo)?
You are getting that error because you have back-tick characters instead of single quotes on both lines 2 and 3
%Image::Exiftool::UserDefined = (
'Image::Exiftool::XMP::xmp' => {
applePhotosID => { Name => 'applePhotosID' },
},
);
1;
See this stack exchange thread (https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/136402/how-to-disable-smart-quotes) to fix your quote problem.
- Phil
Thanks. That fixed it. Now i can't figure out how to just read back out the string value of the tag. If i use -xmp -b -xmp:applePhotosID, it spits out a whole binary file (and if i leave out the -b option it tells me to use -b to extract). And i can't even see the applePhotosID information in the binary file.
I tried switching to IPTC:
%Image::Exiftool::UserDefined = (
'Image::Exiftool::IPTC::ApplicationRecord' => {
240 => {
Name => 'applePhotosID',
Format => 'string[0,64]',
},
},
);
1;
And calling with just -applePhotosID=itemID. But i get
Warning: Tag 'applePhotosID' is not defined
Nothing to do." number 1
It's certainly reading the config file correctly, since it notified me of the syntax problem. What am i doing wrong then?
The devil is in the details.
The capitalization of "ExifTool" is wrong in 2 places. Try this:
%Image::ExifTool::UserDefined = (
'Image::ExifTool::XMP::xmp' => {
applePhotosID => { Name => 'applePhotosID' },
},
);
1;
Ahh! Details. Thanks. That worked like a charm now. With the only thing being that i was running this on a .heic file. Fortunately, you added support for that format fairly recently, so i was able to update ExifTool accordingly. It looks like with this new version i have to add the option -overwrite_original whereas previously i didn't. That threw me a bit but it seems to be working as expected with that option now. Thanks!!
Why do you say that you need to use -overwrite_original? ExifTool should have always preserved the original file whenever anything in the file is changed.
- Phil