import from .csv into Dir with multiple subdirectories

[wasty]

Hello,

first of all I wish you all A Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

I think its not a big issue but I just dont get the right syntax? for my purpose to import metadata from a .csv file (first column sourcefilename like: 14,02(two spaces)1863.jpg) to a directory like
D:\exiftest
        subfolders like \14 france        (here could be the first jpgs)
                              \15 germany    and so on
                        subfolder  \14,02 buildings    (here could be another jpgs)
                        subfolder  \14,03 people       and so on
                                             \14,02  1863.jpg
                                             \14,02  2447.jpg   
                                                or another subfolder with jpg
exiftool and the csv (ooffm.csv) are located in D:\exiftool

As long as the jpg is in the same folder of exiftool, the files are updated but when I want to adreess a different folder like  -D:\exiftest\+subfolders on the same or other drive-, exiftool says to have scanned x directories but updated are only the files in the directory where exiftool is located.

I tried several combinations but end up with no success. One example:
in D:\exiftool>  exiftool -overwrite_original -r -csv=ooffm.csv D:/exiftest/14 france/ -ext jpg .
result:scanned are  D:\ exiftest   and   d:\exiftool !
(full path: ´d:/exiftest/14 france/14,02 buildings/14,02  1863.jpg´)
No SourceFile ´D:/exiftest/14 france/14,02 buildings/14,02  1863.jpg´ in imported CSV database  (for all jpgs located in d:\exiftest and d:\exiftool !?
9 directories scanned   (= seems number of dir in d:\exiftest\.. )
5 image files updated   (= jpg in d:\exiftool )

It would be fantastic someone could tell me what I`m doing wrong
and please don`t be too hard with a newby and computer-blank like me.

Greetings from Germany
   wasty

[StarGeek]

The SourceFile column needs to have either a full or relative path to the file.  So in the case of "14,02  1863.jpg", since you appear to have d:\exiftool as the current directory, the SourceFile needs to be either the full path d:/exiftest/14 france/14,02 buildings/14,02  1863.jpg or the relative path ./14 france/14,02 buildings/14,02  1863.jpg.

But if I recall, a workaround was figured out a while back using hard links.  Ahh, see this post.

[wasty]

Hello StarGeek,

thanks a lot for your reply.

Ok I had hoped that there are some placeholders combined with slashes... or so to let Exiftool scan all dir+subdirectories.

But if as you describe, the other way around is possible -the column SourceFile in the csv file needs to have the whole path- this should be possible with a little work in Excel.
I found the programm DirPrintOK that shows you all directories with all files. The list can be exported to an .xls-file. In the column "path +" the whole exact path of each file is shown !

So I will try this way in the next days. It sounds promising !

A Happy new Year !!

wasty

[wasty]

Hello,

with the correct path in the sourceFile column it works fine. You see all not corresponding pictures marked with "no SourceFile found..". So it was still some job to work on the error messages but now its done and everything is in order for the future.

Exiftool works fast independant from the length of the sourceFile. The number of the pics to work on determines the speed.

Great tool !
wasty