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Reading Metadata from Multiple File Parts

Started by notmetadataguru, July 21, 2021, 05:16:41 PM

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notmetadataguru

Hi,

I am wondering if exiftool has the capability of reading from multiple file parts. For example, I have a single large file that's split into multiple files. Could I supply exiftool with all of these file parts or is it only able to read from whole files? The reason I ask is because some of my files can be very large and it can take time to combine the individual files, so it would be great if I could shave off some processing time here.

BTW, love the forum and the app.

Phil Harvey

Without knowing what type of file we are talking about here, all I can say is: Yes
...where DIR is the name of a directory/folder containing the images.  On Mac/Linux/PowerShell, use single quotes (') instead of double quotes (") around arguments containing a dollar sign ($).

StarGeek

If the file is split at an arbitrary point, for example, a 2 gig video split in half with the linux split command, then I wouldn't think exiftool by itself could read it.  Though I would think maybe you could combine them with cat (?) and pipe the output through StdIn.
* Did you read FAQ #3 and use the command listed there?
* Please use the Code button for exiftool code/output.
 
* Please include your OS, Exiftool version, and type of file you're processing (MP4, JPG, etc).

Phil Harvey

Thanks StarGeek.  I wasn't thinking about splitting with the "split" command.  I was thinking about dividing a multi-page TIFF into separate pages or something like that.

Yes, the "cat" command would work for "split" files:

cat FILE1 FILE2 FILE3 FILE4 ... | exiftool -

- Phil
...where DIR is the name of a directory/folder containing the images.  On Mac/Linux/PowerShell, use single quotes (') instead of double quotes (") around arguments containing a dollar sign ($).

notmetadataguru

Thanks Phil and StarGeek, this is exactly what we're doing but for very large video files, cat can be really slow. Thanks again for the replies.