How Exiftool displays non-existing tags

[Tarn]

Hi Phil,

Something I noticed while displaying various tags, for various reasons, is that sometimes a dash is displayed for an empty tag and sometimes it is not. Additionally, I discovered that a dash seems to be displayed for a non-existing tag no matter what. For example:

Code Select Expand


U:\Working>et -Filename -TwoDogsAndABeer . -T
090704-7932.JPG -
090704-7933.JPG -
090704-7934.JPG -

U:\Working>et -Filename -TwoDogsAndABeer . -T -f
090704-7932.JPG -
090704-7933.JPG -
090704-7934.JPG -

U:\Working>

As you can see, a dash was displayed for -TwoDogsAndABeer regardless if the -f option was used or not.

Is this how ExifTool.exe handles non-existent tags? Would this be a positive/good/poor indicator that the specified tag is missing from a file? Such as in the case were, let's say, Author, has been removed from a file, or files; would -FileName -Author . -T reveal the files that the Author tag was missing from (by virtue of the displayed dash)?

Thanks

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Tarn,

From the application documentation:

       -T (-table)
            Output tag values in table form.  Equivalent to -t -S -q -f.

- Phil

[Tarn]

That's right. I forgot.