ExifTool 8.5 v 8.80

[machouinard]

Just found ExifTool and it's just what I was looking for.  More, actually.  All of my work is done with PHP on a shared hosting account with Hostgator.  I see via Cpanel that they have version 8.5 installed.  As per my need for the latest and greatest of everything I clicked the upgrade button only to be told there was a problem and it could not complete the update.  Before I contact someone at tech support I'd like to know what the benefits to using 8.80 would be.  What would I be missing out on?  Anything PHP related?  Just want to sound like I know what I'm talking about ;-)

Thanks much,
Mark

[BogdanH]

Hi Mark,

Until Phil comes by.. check for changes here: http://www.exiftool.org/history.html
List of changes is quite long and only Phil can tell what changes are "essential". Btw. v8.50 is exactly one year "old" 

Bogdan

[machouinard]

Thanks Bogdan, that really helps.

Man, that's a ton of upgrades in a year.  Nice work, Phil!

[Phil Harvey]

Thanks Bogdan,

There was a -php option added to version 8.75 that may be of interest for PHP-type people.

- Phil

[machouinard]

I noticed that, Phil.  Does using -php have any advantages over using -j and then json_decode?  It's only been a few hours, but that seems to work just fine for me.

I'm excited to try out the Geotag features.  I had no idea ExifTool could do so much more than simply read EXIF data.

Again, great work & thank you!

Mark 

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Mark,

The PHP technique may be a touch quicker, but I don't have any evidence to back this up.  The disadvantage of the PHP technique is that you must evaluate the PHP code to return the array of values, which some people seem not to like for security reasons.

- Phil

Edit:  I forgot an advantage of -php -- it can return binary data (ie. thumbnail images), while the JSON format doesn't support this.