ExifTool Forum

ExifTool => Bug Reports / Feature Requests => Topic started by: OMU1994 on February 18, 2025, 02:42:25 PM

Title: I do not undewrstand how -if works
Post by: OMU1994 on February 18, 2025, 02:42:25 PM
I use version 13.19 for windows 11. I have been using it and stumbled upon

Output from Powershell on Windows 11

PS V:\Bilder> exiftool  -DateTimeCreated -city -sub-location 2025\2025-02-07
======== 2025/2025-02-07/Ulm, Innere-Wall-Strasse, Schubart-Gymnasium mit Sternwarte 2025-02-07_2318.jpg
Date/Time Created              : 2025:02:07 13:22:38+01:00
City                            : Ulm
Sub-location                    : Innere-Wall-Strasse
    1 directories scanned
    1 image files read

Comment: the tags IPTC:City, IPTC:Sub-location  and DateTimeCreated exist

PS V:\Bilder> exiftool  -if "defined $City" -DateTimeCreated -city -sub-location 2025\2025-02-07
    1 directories scanned
    1 files failed condition
    0 image files read

In my humble opinion this should give the same output, since the Tag City exists

PS V:\Bilder> exiftool  -if "defined $IPTC:City" -DateTimeCreated -city -sub-location 2025\2025-02-07
    1 directories scanned
    1 files failed condition
    0 image files read

The same: In my humble opinion this should give the same output, since the Tag City exists


PS V:\Bilder> exiftool  -if "not defined $IPTC:City" -DateTimeCreated -IPTC:city -sub-location 2025\2025-02-07
======== 2025/2025-02-07/Ulm, Innere-Wall-Strasse, Schubart-Gymnasium mit Sternwarte 2025-02-07_2318.jpg
Date/Time Created              : 2025:02:07 13:22:38+01:00
City                            : Ulm
Sub-location                    : Innere-Wall-Strasse
    1 directories scanned
    1 image files read

This is most crazy: If I test for the non-Existence of an existing tag, it is shown.

Somehow this defies my understanding of boolean logic.

Yet another observation: Testing for the existence of a tag containing a hyphen does not work at all:
-if "defined $IPTC:Sub-location" seems to not work.

It would be nice if someone could help me sorting things out.

Thanks
Othmar
Title: Re: I do not undewrstand how -if works
Post by: StarGeek on February 18, 2025, 04:56:51 PM
Don't use PowerShell. Use CMD. The quoting rules for PS are different than every other command line and what works on CMD with double quotes or Mac/Linux with single quotes sometimes doesn't work either way on PS. See this post (https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?msg=80581).
Title: Re: I do not undewrstand how -if works
Post by: OMU1994 on February 19, 2025, 11:25:02 AM
Thanks for clarifying this