ExifTool Forum

filename caption alt-text
a1.jpg    cap1    alt1
a2.jpg    cap2    alt2
a3.jpg    cap3    alt3
a4.jpg    cap4    alt4
a5.jpg    cap5    alt5

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
BEGIN {
    # add script directory to include path
    my $exeDir = ($0 =~ /(.*)[\\\/]/) ? $1 : '.';
    unshift @INC, "$exeDir/lib";
}
use Image::ExifTool;

my $txt = shift or die "Syntax: SCRIPT TEXTFILE [DIR]\n";

open FILE, $txt or die "Error opening $txt\n";
my $dir = shift || '';
$dir .= '/' if $dir;

my $exifTool = new Image::ExifTool;
my @tags;
while (<FILE>) {
    chomp;
    # split up values found in this line (assume tab delimiter)
    my @values = split /\t/, $_;
    next unless @values;
    unless (@tags) {
        $values[0] eq 'filename' or die "Expected 'filename' not found\n";
        shift @values;
        @values or die "No tags found\n";
        @tags = @values;
        print "Writing tags: @tags\n";
        next;
    }
    my $file = $dir . shift(@values);
    unless (-e $file) {
        warn "$file not found\n";
        next;
    }
    @values >= @tags or die "Not enough values for $file\n";
    my $tag;
    $exifTool->SetNewValue();   # clear old values
    # set new values for all tags
    foreach $tag (@tags) {
        my $val = shift @values;
        $exifTool->SetNewValue($tag, $val);
    }
    # update the file
    my $result = $exifTool->WriteInfo($file);
    if ($result == 1) {
        print "$file updated\n";
    } elsif ($result == 2) {
        print "$file not changed\n";
    } else {
        print "$file - write error!\n";
        last;
    }
}
# end