Question to -stay_open

[herb]

Hello Phil,

I am working on an application that tries to manage tags 'groupwise' and also to manage the embedded thumbnails.
I send e.g. the following command to ExifTool:
   exiftool.exe  -if $thumbnailimage -m -b -thumbnailimage -w <out-file-1> <image-file> -execute
                       -if $previewimage    -m -b -previewimage    -w <out-file-2> <image-file> -execute
                       -if $jpgfromraw        -m -b -jpgfromraw        -w <out-file-3> <image-file> -execute
                       -P -m -tagsfromfile <imagefile> -All:all <image-file.mie>

All is working fine, but I have some questions:
- How often is <image-file> opened by ExifTool.

I assume that the <image-file> is opened once.
Now I want to introduce the -stay_open mechanism in communication with ExifTool.
In -stay_open mode the end of a command for ExifTool is -execute.
So it will handle the command given above as 4 commands and so open <image-file> also 4 times.
Is there a way that ExifTool will open <image-file> also only once.

Thanks for your comments and hints in advance
Best regards
Herb

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Herb,

The -stay_open doesn't affect the number of times the image file is opened.

With -execute, the image file is opened exactly the same number of times as if you used separate commands.  The only difference with -execute is that exiftool itself isn't reloaded for each command.

Currently, the only way to extract 3 binary data blobs and open the input file only once is to write a Perl script yourself using the ExifTool API.  The exiftool application doesn't yet have this ability.

- Phil

[herb]

Hello Phil,

thanks for the explanations.

Best Regards
Herb