writing literal colon as part of tag fails in ver 8.55 but succeeds in ver 8.25

[ryerman]

Consider the following command:
                             exiftool -k "-xpauthor<Artist:  $filetype" FILE
where FILE is a JPEG image file.

When I use ver 8.25, "Artist:" (without quotes, and shown in bold above) is written as part of the tag value for xpauthor. (along with the value of the filetype tag)
When I use ver 8.55 it is not; only 2 spaces and the value of the filetype tag are written.
I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the colon.

How should I modify the above command for use in version 8.55 so Artist: is written as in version 8.25
In general, how can I write a "constant" that is a special character?

Thanks,
Jim

[Phil Harvey]

Thank you very much for pointing out this bug.  It effects versions 8.32 through 8.55, but it will be fixed in version 8.56 when it is released.

- Phil

[ryerman]

Thank-you, Phil
The command writes correctly with version 8.56.
Maybe you'll move this topic to the Bug section.

Jim

edit: corrected version number

[Phil Harvey]

Great.  (I assume you meant version 8.56, not 8.26).

And moved this thread to the bugs section.

- Phil