Use of Exiftool's ADVANCED Option -echo with and without an ARGFILE

[JoshInDC]

I am writing metadata to thousands of PDF files on Windows 10. I have written a standard slow script that calls exiftool for every PDF, but of course this is veeerrryyyyy slow. I have also figured out how to use the ARGFILE to do the metadata writing MUCH faster, but I am trying to keep a log, so if I get an error, I can know what filename is causing the error, or what file was missing...

For example, in Dos, I can run the following command:

    exiftool -echo 000089 -WHT-ID=000089 000089.pdf


And I get back:

    000089
        1 image files updated


This is as I would expect.


Then I run the same and dump the results to a text file using the following command:

    exiftool -echo 000089 -WHT-ID=000089 000089.pdf >> _out.txt


And I get a good result in the _out.txt file (showing my ID, and the result of exiftool):

    000089
        1 image files updated


Then I run a cmd on a non-existant file and dump the results to a text file using the following command:

    exiftool -echo 000090 -WHT-ID=000090 000090.pdf >> _out.txt


And I get a nice error message in the _out.txt file as desired...

    000090
        0 image files updated
        1 files weren't updated due to errors


WONDERFUL! Thus far everything works as I would expect. I am receiving nice messages, either of success, or of errors, due to missing files, in this case, or hopefully failures writing metadata...



BUT when I try to do this using the ARGFILE method (so it will be much much faster), it is not working as desired. Perhaps I am not doing things correctly, but it seems that -echo is now being treated as a tag, and not an ADVANCED option.

Here is what my ARGFILE looks like (would normally have thousands of more lines):

    -echo 000089
    -WHT-ID=000089
    000089.pdf
    -execute


And here is how I call it in DOS, trying to get a log of the exiftool actions:

    exiftool -@ _meta.txt >> _out.txt


But this is what it spits out on the command line:

    Invalid TAG name: "echo 000089"
    Ignored superfluous tag name or invalid option: -echo 000089


And this is what the _out.txt file now has (since the -WHT-ID metadata write was successful), but unfortunately, the ID is not echo'd to this file, which is what I would like:

    1 image files updated



SO, it seem that now the ADVANCED option -echo is now being seen as a standard metadata tag, and exiftool is trying to write it to my file, but what I really want is to just output the ID to the _out.txt file along with the result of exiftool's actions, so I can have a log of failures and successes.

What can I do to get this to work correctly. It seems that -echo is no longer recognized when it comes from an ARGFILE...

Thanks! And thanks again for a great tool in Exiftool!

[StarGeek]

See FAQ #29.  The -echo option and the text it outputs are two separate arguments and need to be on separate lines.

[JoshInDC]

Thanks much! It worked just fine when I set up a given ARGFILE record like this:

-echo
000089
-WHT-ID=000089
000089.pdf
-execute

Notice the -echo on one line, and then the text that I wanted to print on the next line.
(In this case, 000089)

[Phil Harvey]

Cudos to StarGeek for sorting through such a long TL;DR to find the simple problem.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

Cudos to StarGeek for sorting through such a long TL;DR to find the simple problem.

Actually, I read the title, jumped to the conclusion it was FAQ #29, and hit control+F to find the -echo statement to verify.

The cudos are that I took the extra step to verify

[Phil Harvey]

Well done.

[JoshInDC]

Haha TL;DR!

Part of the reason why I wrote everything out was so that the other newbies would be able to search and find this solution. I had done some googling and couldn't find an answer, so I hoped the next noob would just find this thread and not have to ask!

Thanks again...