Exiftool produces error in attempting to generate documentation

[oterrya]

Running
exiftool(-k).exe
  produces the following error

Code Select Expand

Error creating temp file C:/Users/Terry/AppData/Local/Temp/par-Terry//exiftool_doc.txt

Note the double slashes in the portion added to my temp path.

I am not a perl guru and still am in the pretty useless mode of debugging perl scripts.

I am running the windows .exe version on
Windows 7 Pro (up to date on patches)
perl 5.10.1 (but since I am using the Windows .exe, it should not matter)

If I run it against a .jpg file it appears that I get correct information from the file.

Any clues as to where to go from here?

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Terry,

The double slash shouldn't matter.  (It doesn't matter in Unix anyway.)

Does the directory "C:/Users/Terry/AppData/Local/Temp/par-Terry" exist, and is the directory writable by you?

And if the file C:/Users/Terry/AppData/Local/Temp/par-Terry/exiftool_doc.txt already exists, do you have write permission?

- Phil

[oterrya]

  Thanks Phil.  I managed to get around the issue.  More to the point, it seems to work fine now.

[curatorpreservator]

Hello everybody,
I have a similar problem when the path has a white space in the middle, using under Windows

For Example:

c:\Archive Pictures\images


Is it an bug? should I substitute Archive Pictures by Archive%20Pictures ? Should all directories not have a white space?

Thanks in advance

JJo

[Phil Harvey]

This sounds like a problem running exiftool, not with the installation per se.

The space is used to separate arguments on the command line.  There are other special characters (such as > and < for example) which also cause problems.  Arguments containing these characters must be quoted on the command line.  In Windows, double quotes must be used, ie)

exiftool "c:\Archive Pictures\images"

- Phil

[Jarb]

It would be nice when running exiftool without any arguments to not get this cryptic error:

  PS E:\users\john\Pictures\iMac_Photos_Export_2015-07-25\March 11, 2008> exiftool
  Error creating temp file C:/Users/John/AppData/Local/Temp/par-John//exiftool_doc.txt
  -- press RETURN --


This was the first command I tried to run after installing version 10.09 on Windows 7. I figured out that I could get useful help information by adding ".", i.e., exiftool .

Thanks for an extremely powerful utility!

[Phil Harvey]

OK,  I'll change it so the output looks like this:

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PS E:\users\john\Pictures\iMac_Photos_Export_2015-07-25\March 11, 2008> exiftool
  Error creating temp file C:/Users/John/AppData/Local/Temp/par-John//exiftool_doc.txt
  So ExifTool can't print the help documentation.
  -- press RETURN --

- Phil

[Jarb]

OK,  I'll change it so the output looks like this:

Code Select Expand

PS E:\users\john\Pictures\iMac_Photos_Export_2015-07-25\March 11, 2008> exiftool
  Error creating temp file C:/Users/John/AppData/Local/Temp/par-John//exiftool_doc.txt
  So ExifTool can't print the help documentation.
  -- press RETURN --

- Phil

What service! Thank you!