Sort on -G column first?

[handvprice]

TY for the responses to my earlier question about outputting the command line.

New question: "-sort" seems a little wonky. It properly sorts on the tagname (assuming using -s). But if I also add -G to show the makernotes, it still sorts properly by tagname within each group, but the groups aren't sorted alphabetically.

Also, adding -All results in it sorting by tagname, but now paying no attention to group.

(For now, I'm redirecting output to a txt file, importing into word, sorting, and outputting back to .txt so I can compare the effects of different switches or comparing heic's and jpg's.)

TY in advance.

[Phil Harvey]

Yes, correct.  With -sort -G the tags are sorted within each group, but the order of the groups is not changed.  And you're right about the behaviour with -all.  I can't recall if that was intended or not... honestly, almost nobody uses the -sort feature. 

You can do this if you want the sort to include the group:

exiftool -G FILE | sort

- Phil

[StarGeek]

You can do this if you want the sort to include the group:

exiftool -G FILE | sort

This will work on Windows as it has a sort command in C:\Windows\System32\.

I think PowerShell will high jack the command into its own Sort-Object cmdlet, which still seems to work.

[StarGeek]

Testing further, I'm a bit confused about the --sort option.  It says in the docs

By default, tags are organized by groups when combined with the -g or -G option, but this grouping may be disabled with --sort.

But I can't see how the sorting is happening with the output. My test file has the File group split up and almost nothing appears to have actually been sorted.

Example

Code Select Expand

C:\>exiftool -G -s --sort y:\!temp\Test4.jpg
[ExifTool]      ExifToolVersion                 : 12.72
[File]          FileName                        : Test4.jpg
[File]          Directory                       : y:/!temp
[File]          FileSize                        : 451 kB
[File]          FileModifyDate                  : 2024:01:16 12:28:43-08:00
[File]          FileAccessDate                  : 2024:01:21 19:40:26-08:00
[File]          FileCreateDate                  : 2023:12:15 07:53:23-08:00
[File]          FilePermissions                 : -rw-rw-rw-
[File]          FileType                        : JPEG
[File]          FileTypeExtension               : jpg
[File]          MIMEType                        : image/jpeg
[File]          CurrentIPTCDigest               : 7b041c32dffe3d70e4e2f5d6b7f0940d
[IPTC]          Caption-Abstract                : test
[IPTC]          ApplicationRecordVersion        : 4
[XMP]           XMPToolkit                      : Image::ExifTool 12.72
[XMP]           Description                     : Test
[File]          ImageWidth                      : 1749
[File]          ImageHeight                     : 1205
[File]          EncodingProcess                 : Baseline DCT, Huffman coding
[File]          BitsPerSample                   : 8
[File]          ColorComponents                 : 3
[File]          YCbCrSubSampling                : YCbCr4:2:0 (2 2)
[Composite]     ImageSize                       : 1749x1205
[Composite]     Megapixels                      : 2.1
[Composite]     AspectRatio                     : 1749:1205

[handvprice]

TY both!

Responding to StarGeek, it looks like without any sort switch, there may be a "heirarchy" of groups, Exiftool then File then Quicktime then Exif then MakerNotes then ICC and finally Composite. With -sort, tags are sorted within each group, but group order is same. With --sort, it seems somewhat random.

TY again. Spectacular software, that even the major companies recommend. I'm *so* impressed by the rapid responsiveness, especially by the developer. Can't get that kind of support in *paid* software. So I'm donating some. Thanks.

[Phil Harvey]

@StarGeek:  With --sort, the sort order is just the order of extraction.  You won't see a big difference with this unless there are tags from 2 same-named groups extracted at different times.

@handvprice:  Thanks for the donation.

- Phil