Modify the contents of a tag (by replacing a word).

[philbond87]

I'm trying to figure out how I can change the value of a tag – for a large number of image files – with the current contents of that tag, but with a word changed.

For example, if the contents of the

Code Select Expand

tag -CreatorAddress was "123 Main St"
How would I change it so that the tag's contents were "123 Main Street"

I would like to change all of the files in the directory (or even texted directories, using the -r tag) so that all of the instances of "St" in that tag were changed to "Street"


Thank you!

[Alan Clifford]

so that all of the instances of "St" in that tag were changed to "Street"

Be careful!

Stone St

Last St.

[Phil Harvey]

exiftool "-creatoraddress<${creatoraddress;s/\bSt\b/Street/}" DIR

- Phil

[philbond87]

Thank you Phil. That did it.
My attempts weren't working as I didn't as I didn't use (or understand) the use of /b.

[StarGeek]

My attempts weren't working as I didn't as I didn't use (or understand) the use of /b.

The \b is a zero length anchor in regex.  Copying details from regular-expressions.info

There are three different positions that qualify as word boundaries:

    Before the first character in the string, if the first character is a word character.
    After the last character in the string, if the last character is a word character.
    Between two characters in the string, where one is a word character and the other is not a word character.

Regular Expressions are a complex subject.  The site I linked is where I learned how to use them.  And RegEx101 is a good site to test out regex and it even gives a step by step breakdown of the expression.

[philbond87]

Thank you both.

How would I add a conditional check to only do the substitution if a specific string was found in that tag?

Forever grateful,
Phil

[StarGeek]

You could use
exiftool -if "$creatoraddress=~m/\bSt\b/" "-creatoraddress<${creatoraddress;s/\bSt\b/Street/}" /path/to/files/

Swap double quotes for single quotes on Mac/Linux/Windows PS

[philbond87]

Thanks @stargeek.

My problem is that I'm trying to put multiple conditionals in one command, as in if it's ST then change it to Street, or if it's AVE then change it to Avenue, etc.

[philbond87]

I thought perhaps I could just run the conditional statements sequentially however that doesn't seem to work.

[StarGeek]

Try this
exiftool -if "$creatoraddress=~m/\b(St|Ave)\b/i" "-creatoraddress<${creatoraddress;s/\bSt\b/Street/i;s/\bAVE\b/Avenue/i}" /path/to/files/

The -if option now checks against "st" or "Ave" by itself and is now case insensitive.  Then for the replacement, each replacement is separated by a semicolon, as well as being case insensitive.

[philbond87]

Beautiful – I really appreciate the assistance.

[Phil Harvey]

This can also be done without the -if statement:

exiftool "-creatoraddress<${creatoraddress;s/\bSt\b/Street/i or s/\bAVE\b/Avenue/i or $_=undef}" /path/to/files/

I don't think there is any real advantage to doing it this way here, but I put it out there because it may be useful in some situations.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

The biggest disadvantage to doing it without the -if option is that it will throw Warning: No writable tags for any file that isn't affected and that tends to worry some users.

[Phil Harvey]

True.