How Exiftool works?

[khiz]

Hello,

I am a new user and wonder how this tool actually gets the meta data so intelligently? For instance I have manually checked geotag manually several JPEG photos (from different sources) with Exif format but each of them is slightly different from other in the way how they log geotag.
I am curious if a library is maintained for every little difference or there is some other logic the tool is using?

Please share your valuable thoughts.

Thank you

So far I have found the tool extraordinary!!! Thank you so much Phil Harvey for such an excellent tool.

[Phil Harvey]

The EXIF specification gives the format for storing GPS information.  There may be differences in what is stored in the EXIF, but ExifTool parses this information to extract whatever it can, according to the general EXIF formatting rules.  If you are interested in understanding the format, the ExifTool -htmldump feature allows you to see how this information is stored.

- Phil