Why limiting IPTC.Category

[kiboost]

Hi,

When setting IPTC Category tag with exiftool, the string is limited to three characters.

Every other softwares I know allow reading and writing at least 18 characters (a string I actually use)

Would it be possible to up this limit in future updates ?

[StarGeek]

Because according to the the IPTC IIM Specifications (see page 31), it is supposed to be limited to three characters.  You can work around this by using the -m option, which will allow exiftool to ignore the specification.

There is also the XMP:Category tag, which isn't limited to only three characters.  You might want to check to see which tags your software is writing to.

If I recall, the original use of this tag was in news agencies and limited to some very specific codes.  Though I can't seem to find any actual links on this at the moment.

[kiboost]

Thanks, -m works fine !!

[Phil Harvey]

Just FYI, this feature is explained in the 3rd paragraph on the ExifTool IPTC Tags documentation page.

- Phil