Erasing tag values – Are some tags related?

[philbond87]

I have written an application that displays the EXIF, IPTC and XMP tags that contain values in a directory of images. I can select the tags that I want to clear from all of the images (that have those tags).
The application takes the "selected" tags and forms a string, tagsToClear, which is string variable that is a part of this Exiftool command:

Code Select Expand

usr/local/bin/exiftool -m -progress: -r -overwrite_original_in_place " + tagsToClear + " " + targetFolder.ShellPath

The tagsToClear string might look like this, for example:

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" -EXIF:Artist= -IPTC:By-line= -XMP:CreatorPostalCode "

(I realize that some tags are not writeable.)

The question I have is this:
Are some tags somehow interdependent?
I find that if I try to clear certain IPTC tags they do in fact go away. However if I then clear certain XMP tags some IPTC tags are generated (that seem to be related to the XMP tags that were cleared).

Thank you community

[StarGeek]

There are some EXIF tags which can be mandatory (see 3rd paragraph on the EXIF tags page) and a few others that can be automatically created when using MWG tags but otherwise, no, removing a tag in one group doesn't create a tag in another group.

Are you sure that those other tags don't already exist (see 3rd paragraph under FAQ #3)?  For example, clearing XMP:Headline or XMP:City can reveal the same name duplicate in IPTC when the -a (-duplicates) option is not used.

Can you give a example command where this is happening?

[Phil Harvey]

if I then clear certain XMP tags some IPTC tags are generated (that seem to be related to the XMP tags that were cleared).

Yes, definitely FAQ 3 as StarGeek mentioned.

- Phil

[philbond87]

Are you sure that those other tags don't already exist (see 3rd paragraph under FAQ #3)?  For example, clearing XMP:Headline or XMP:City can reveal the same name duplicate in IPTC when the -a (-duplicates) option is not used.

Yes, definitely FAQ 3 as StarGeek mentioned.

Yes, that was it. Thank you!