Replacing spaces in the exif model name

[rbak]

Hi all, I am new to the exiftool and still learning so please be gentle with me... 

I recently bought myself a NAS to store all the family photos that over the years have ended up on many different external drives. I am looking for a good way to organize my photos and for that reason I would like to rename my photos so the filename will be based on the actual date the photo was taken.

While checking the internet I found out that the exiftool seems to be the swiss army knife for this task. However it seems to have a bit steeper learning curve to understand all the possibilities compared to a swiss army knife

So far I have been able to figure out that the following command (on windows) works fine for me to rename the files in a specific directory (including any potential subdirectories):


exiftool -fileOrder DateTimeOriginal -r -d "%Y%m%d-%H%M%S%%-02.c.%%e" "-filename<$CreateDate" "DIR"


When a JPG photo was taken on the 11th of February 2024 at 19:46:32 and it is the only file taken in that second, the above command would result in a file with the following name: "20240211-194632-00.JPG" A 2nd phoo that was shot in exactly teh same second would result in a file with name "20240211-194632-01.JPG".

Although I expect the following command might actually make more sense (even though both end up with the same result):


exiftool -fileOrder DateTimeOriginal -r -d "%Y%m%d-%H%M%S" "-filename<$CreateDate%-02.c.%e" "DIR"


After all this is a cleaner way to use the date-time format. And in my opinion also easier to read


Next option I investigated was to add the exif camera model information in the actual file name. So I came up with the following:


exiftool -fileOrder DateTimeOriginal -r -d "%Y%m%d-%H%M%S" "-filename<$CreateDate-${model;}%-02.c.%e" "DIR"


With the example above and with my Nikon D750 I end up with a file name as follows: "20240211-194632-NIKON D750-00.JPG". So even though this seems to work fine I do not like the fact that there is a space that now ends up in the file name due to the model name in the exif being "NIKON D750".

Is there a way to manipulate the information retrieved from the exif and replace the space with a hyphen? So is there a way to manipulate this so I end up with "20240211-194632-NIKON-D750-00.JPG"? And of course I want this to work with all type of model names. So model names without spaces or even model names with multiple spaces.

By the way the reason I am thinking about using the model name in the file name is due to the fact that withing my family we use multiple devices to shoot photos. This way I can already identify based on the filename which camera or mobile phone the photo originates from.

[StarGeek]

Is there a way to manipulate the information retrieved from the exif and replace the space with a hyphen? So is there a way to manipulate this so I end up with "20240211-194632-NIKON-D750-00.JPG"? And of course I want this to work with all type of model names. So model names without spaces or even model names with multiple spaces.

You could do this by changing ${model;} into
${Model;tr/ /-/;tr(/\\?*:|"<>\0)()d}

Normally, the semicolon ; by itself will remove problem characters but because you're also swapping spaces->hyphens, it needs to be explicitly added.  See Advanced formatting feature, line starting "A default expression".

[rbak]

Can't figure out why but this throws an arror for me. Not sure how to interpret the code either. But in the mean time I decided to go for the following command:

exiftool -fileOrder DateTimeOriginal -r -d "%Y%m%d-%H%M%S" "-filename<$CreateDate-%02.c ${model;}.%e" "DIR"

This will result in the following file name: "20240211-194632-00 NIKON D750.JPG"

[StarGeek]

Oops, forgot there's a double quote in there.  Try this
${Model;tr/ /-/;tr(/\\?*:|\"<>\0)()d}

Or remove the quote, as I don't think that Model tag is likely to include one
${Model;tr/ /-/;tr(/\\?*:|<>\0)()d}

exiftool -fileOrder DateTimeOriginal -r -d "%Y%m%d-%H%M%S" "-filename<$CreateDate-%02.c ${model;}.%e" "C:\Users\rbak\Pictures\exiftool_test"

You could run this as a second command to change any spaces to hyphens
exiftool -fast3 -if3 "$Filename=~m/ /" "-Filename<${Filename;s/ /-/g}" /path/to/files/

[rbak]

Or remove the quote, as I don't think that Model tag is likely to include one
${Model;tr/ /-/;tr(/\\?*:|<>\0)()d}

Great that did the trick :-)

So would it not be enough to just use the following for replacing only the spaces with a hyphen and ignore all other unsupported characters:

${Model;tr/ /-/;}

This seems to work fine for me as well. Is there a reason why the solution you propsed wil be better in certain situations?

[StarGeek]

You said

And of course I want this to work with all type of model names.

But models like these would cause problems

Code Select Expand

c:\exiftool -G1 -a -s -if "$Model=~/[\/\\?*:]/ or $Make=~/[\/\\?*:]/" -make -model -r Y:\!temp\!Metadata_Repository >temp.txt
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/Canon/CanonCanoScanFB630U.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : Canon Inc.
[IFD0]          Model                           : CanoScan FB630U/FB636U
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/Canon/CanonCanoScanN650U.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : Canon Inc.
[IFD0]          Model                           : CanoScan N650U/N656U
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/Canon/Canon_iR1018.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : Canon
[IFD0]          Model                           : Canon iR1018/1022/1023
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/Epson/EpsonCX3900.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : EPSON
[IFD0]          Model                           : EPSON CX3900/CX4000/DX4000
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/FLIR/FLIR_ONE.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : FLIR Systems AB
[IFD0]          Model                           : *
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/FujiFilm/FujiFilmFinePixJZ100.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : FUJIFILM
[IFD0]          Model                           : FinePix JZ100/JZ110
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/FujiFilm/FujiFilmFinePixJZ250.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : FUJIFILM
[IFD0]          Model                           : FinePix JZ250/JZ260
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/FujiFilm/FujiFilmFinePixXP200.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : FUJIFILM
[IFD0]          Model                           : FinePix XP200/XP210
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/Hasselblad/HasselbladCFV-50c.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : Hasselblad
[IFD0]          Model                           : Hasselblad CFV-50c/500
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/Hasselblad/HasselbladCFV_II50C.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : Hasselblad
[IFD0]          Model                           : CFV II 50C/907X
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/JVC/JVC_GR-DVX9x.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : JVC
[IFD0]          Model                           : GR-DVX9*
======== Y:/!temp/!Metadata_Repository/JVC/JVC_GR-DVxxx.jpg
[IFD0]          Make                            : JVC
[IFD0]          Model                           : GR-DV***
...
  104 directories scanned
 6787 files failed condition
  145 image files read

The inclusion of slashes or backslashes will create subdirectories.  For example, the "FinePix JZ100/JZ110" would end up with this

Code Select Expand

20240211-194632-FinePix JZ100/JZ110 D750-00.JPGThat is a filename of "JZ110 D750-00.JPG" in the newly created directory of "20240211-194632-FinePix JZ100"

The other characters listed are not legal for Windows filenames, though on the NAS will be more flexible about some of these.

[rbak]

That makes sense. But would the semicolon at the end not take care of all the other non supported characters?

As I understand the semicolon in below would remove all non supported characters:

${model;}


As the space is a supported character the above would not remove it. As I want the space to be replaced by a hyphen I sort of expect that the following would do just that, and the semicolon at the end would also ensure any potential unsupported characters will be removed.

${Model;tr/ /-/;}


As I understand the following would replace the space with an hyphen (the ";tr/ /-/" part) and remove the specified characters "/", "\", "?", "*", ":", "|", "<", ">" and "null" (the ";tr(/\\?*:|<>\0)()d" part)

${Model;tr/ /-/;tr(/\\?*:|<>\0)()d}


But all of this is relatively new to me so maybe I am missing something in the syntax. Is there a tool where you can simply validate the syntax? That might help me and potentially others as well to better understand the syntax and the potential impact of adding a simple semicolon at the end.

[Phil Harvey]

Read the documentation here.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

As I said above

See Advanced formatting feature, line starting "A default expression".

which says

A default expression of tr(/\\?*:|"<>\0)()d is assumed if the expression is empty (ie. ${TAG;}).

But all of this is relatively new to me so maybe I am missing something in the syntax. Is there a tool where you can simply validate the syntax?

The syntax is the Perl language. Not something you can validate without actually running Perl.