Listing Keywords seperated by newlines

[alexs77]

Hi.

Using exiftool 8.38, I'd somehow like to list Keywords seperated by newline, so that I can easily pipe it to a "while" loop in bash. How do I make exiftool seperate the keywords by a \n?

I tried:

exiftool -sep "
" -Keywords file.jpg

exiftool -config ~/ExifTool.config

Code Select Expand

MacBook-Pro:ports alex$ cat ~/ExifTool.config
%Image::ExifTool::UserDefined = (
    'Image::ExifTool::Composite' => {
        MyKeywords => {
            Require => 'Keywords',
            ValueConv => q{
                my @list = ref $val eq 'ARRAY' ? @$val : ($val);
                $_ = "\n $_" foreach @list;
                return \@list;
            },
        },
        MyCaption => {
            Require => 'Caption-Abstract',
            ValueConv => '"\n $val"',
        },
        MyHeadline => {
            Require => 'Headline',
            ValueConv => '"\n $val"',
        },
    }
);
1;  #end

But when I do this, instead of a "\n" (line feed), I get a "."!

MacBook-Pro:Hato Caves alex$ exiftool -config ~/ExifTool.config -MyKeywords *018*g
My Keywords                     : . Hato Caves, . Curaçao, . Flitterwochen, . ja, nein, doch, . zeile1,.zeile2

MacBook-Pro:Hato Caves alex$ exiftool -sep "
> " -Keywords *018*g
Keywords                        : Hato Caves.Curaçao.Flitterwochen.ja, nein, doch.zeile1,.zeile2


Am I doing something wrong? FWIW, I'm also attaching the image file.

Thanks,
Alexander

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Alexander,

You're not doing anything wrong.  The exiftool application filters newlines.  Some alternatives are discussed in FAQ number 21.

- Phil

[alexs77]

Hi Phil!

Thanks for the prompt answer! I've read the FAQ 21, but it mainly deals with how to writer/enter a \n.

So, do I understand the FAQ right, that the answer is: Use JSON or XML output and parse that, if you want to have newlines?  


Thanks again,
Alexander

...

Edit:
No, the answer is, use the "-b" switch!

Code Select Expand

$ exiftool -b -Keywords *18*g
Hato Caves
Curaçao
Flitterwochen
ja, nein, doch
zeile1,
zeile2$ exiftool -ver
8.38


Hm, this shows another problem - here, I inserted ONE keyword, which goes over two lines (the last one: zeile1,
zeile2). To overcome this, it would be good, if a \0 (0x00) could be printed (assumption: a \0 will never appear in a keyword).

Solution for this: Use a config file!

Code Select Expand

%Image::ExifTool::UserDefined = (
    'Image::ExifTool::Composite' => {
        Keywords0 => {
            Require => 'Keywords',
            ValueConv => q{
                my @list = ref $val eq 'ARRAY' ? @$val : ($val);
                $_ = "\0$_" foreach @list;
                return \@list;
            },
        },
    }
);
1;  #end

But it's still not perfect

Code Select Expand

$ exiftool -config ~/ExifTool.config -b -Keywords0 *18*g
Hato Caves
Curaçao
Flitterwochen
ja, nein, doch
zeile1,
zeile2

$ exiftool -config ~/ExifTool.config -b -Keywords0 *18*g | hexdump -C
00000000  00 48 61 74 6f 20 43 61  76 65 73 0a 00 43 75 72  |.Hato Caves..Cur|
00000010  61 63 cc a7 61 6f 0a 00  46 6c 69 74 74 65 72 77  |ac..ao..Flitterw|
00000020  6f 63 68 65 6e 0a 00 6a  61 2c 20 6e 65 69 6e 2c  |ochen..ja, nein,|
00000030  20 64 6f 63 68 0a 00 7a  65 69 6c 65 31 2c 0a 7a  | doch..zeile1,.z|
00000040  65 69 6c 65 32                                    |eile2|
00000045

As you can see there, exiftool (?) seems to print a linefeed (\n , 0x0a) AFTER the keyword. Can this be solved? I'm not that much of a perl guru *G*


Thanks again,
Alexnader

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Alexander,

The -b option inserts a newline between keywords, which seems to be what you wanted originally.   Yes this would cause a problem if a keyword contained a newline.  If you want only "\0" between keywords, you could use the -b option with this conversion:

Code Select Expand

            ValueConv => q{
                my @list = ref $val eq 'ARRAY' ? @$val : ($val);
                return join "\0", @list;
            },


- Phil

[alexs77]

Hi Phil!

Yeah, I originally indeed wanted a newline - but then, while writing the reply, I noticed that just a newline was not such a good seperator 

With your new valueconv, everything works just perfectly fine now 

Thanks again for your help!

Cheers,
Alex