search and replace character in all metadata

[Craxo]

Hi,
The functionality of searching in all the tags and executing something was added in version 11.95, many thanks for that!
Now I'm trying to search in all metadata and replace any character that is not: [^[:alnum:][:space:]():.,\-_\"\'%\/+-] and replace it with a space.
this nice command was provided by Phil to search for "<>()" characters:

exiftool -api filter='$$self{Yes}=1 if /[<>()]/' -if '$$self{Yes}' <do something> DIR

However I am failing miserably trying to make the substitution to the matching tags with s/ [^[:alnum:][:space:]():.,\-_\"\'%\/+-] /" "
my question is whether what i want to do is possible and if is there a variable that can be used to make the substitution in this case?

Thank you,
Craxo

[StarGeek]

I don't believe Perl uses bracket characters classes like those, just backslash character classes.  So replace [:alnum:] and [:space:] with \w and \s.  The underscore is included with the \w.

According to this StackOverflow answer, all you need to escape are the .^$*[\ characters.  And the double quote needs to be escaped if you're using Windows.

Here's the regex that I think covers your list, though I'm not sure if you're trying to include a backslash or not.  If so, add \\.
-api "filter=s/[^\s\w():.\-\"'%\/+]/ /g"

[Craxo]

Thank you very much, it does find and replace
exiftool  -api "filter=s/[^\s\w()\-\"\'%\/+]/ /g" file.jpg
but how do I write the substituted version it in the metadata?

[Phil Harvey]

It would be dangerous to try to filter all metadata like this.  If you did this, it would also apply changes to things like the ThumbnailImage, which wouldn't be a good idea.  Instead, target the specific tags that you want to change:

exiftool -tagsfromfile @ -TAG1 -TAG2 ... -api "filter=s/[^\s\w()\-\"\'%\/+]/ /g" file.jpg

- Phil

[Craxo]

Thank you very much Phil!
Is there a way excluding only certain metadata?
i cannot seem to do it with -x or -exclude:

exiftool -tagsfromfile @ -x -thumbnailimage -api "filter=s/[^\s\w()\-\"\'%\/+]/ /g" img.jpg

[Phil Harvey]

The syntax is -x TAG (no dash before the tag name).  Or --TAG accomplishes the same thing.

- Phil

[Craxo]

thank you very much!