Copying tags works, except in batch

[thany]

I'm using this command to copy the Software and Rating tags into both Keywords and Subject. After a LOT of fiddling, I found that I had to use -addTagsFromFile @ to get exiftool to merge Keywords and Subject when appending from multiple other tags. The documention says "this may seem strange" and well, it is

Because it works great, except when doing a batch.

So this works:

exiftool -P -overwrite_original_in_place -progress -addTagsFromFile @ "-Keywords<${Rating;$_=sprintf('rating:%d', $_)}" "-Keywords<${Software;$_=sprintf('software:%s', $_)}" "-Subject<${Rating;$_=sprintf('rating:%d', $_)}" "-Subject<${Software;$_=sprintf('software:%s', $_)}" test.jpg

Result is correct:

Rating                          : 1
Keywords                        : rating:1, software:Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)
Subject                         : rating:1, software:Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)
Software                        : Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)

And to batch-process the whole directory, this doesn't work:

exiftool -P -overwrite_original_in_place -progress -addTagsFromFile @ "-Keywords<${Rating;$_=sprintf('rating:%d', $_)}" "-Keywords<${Software;$_=sprintf('software:%s', $_)}" "-Subject<${Rating;$_=sprintf('rating:%d', $_)}" "-Subject<${Software;$_=sprintf('software:%s', $_)}" .

Output is incorrect:

Rating                          : 1
Keywords                        : rating:s
Subject                         : rating:s
Software                        : Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 (Windows)

Where does that rating:s even come from? What is going on, and how do I make it work?

I'm using Exiftool 11.2.6.0 on Windows 10.

[Phil Harvey]

You didn't say so, but I'm guessing you are running the second command from a .BAT file, while your first command is from the command line.  If so, reading FAQ 27 should clear things up.

- Phil

[thany]

Thanks for the super quick reply!

Yes, this was indeed the case. Actually it was a .CMD file, which in this case means the same thing.

I still don't understand where rating:s came from. I would have expected rating:d where my %d would collapse to just d. And another thing I don't understand is why is the software:.. keyword missing in the batch process? Even if I'm not properly escaping, it should still append multiple keywords, right?

[Phil Harvey]

Everything between the two % characters was interpreted as a (non-existent) CMD-script variable.  There is a "s" immediately following the second "%".  I'm guessing because I don't really know the CMD syntax.

- Phil

[thany]

Ah, and that's why the software keyword didn't get added. Makes sense. Kind of

Anyway, thanks again. Happy holidays!