Note #2 under http://www.exiftool.org/index.html#tagnames (http://www.exiftool.org/index.html#tagnames) says:
Quote2. When extracting information, tags will not appear in the output unless they exist in the file, even if they are specified on the command line. The -f option may be used to force all specified tags to be displayed.
The documentation at http://www.exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html#f (http://www.exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html#f) says:
QuoteWith this option, a dash (-) is printed for the value of any missing tag
However, when I run a command with exiftool version
9.90 on linux:
exiftool 201405140003HQ.tif -G -s -f -a -IPTC:AllI don't see any missing tags from -IPTC:All fliled with "-" that I would expect. I cannot tell from the docs if I should or not. It depends on how I read it. Should I?
No. I can see how this could be misleading, but this applies only tags specified by name on the command line (eg. -iptc:keywords). It would be crazy to output all non-existent tags in an entire group. (In fact, not possible, because ExifTool doesn't even know what these should be.)
I'll see about clarifying this in the documentation.
- Phil
I figured about as much. Thanks much for clarifying, Phil.