Writing directory structure into XMP tag

[gtrotter]

Hi

I am new to Exiftool but have downloaded and started using the ExifToolGUI. We have a large number of images stored within a structured file system i.e. c:\Africa\East Africa\Kenya\Nairobi\Norfolk Hotel\Image1.jpg. I would like to run a process to extract or parse the directory structure and to write the parsed data back as embedded meta data within the image. For example xmp:country=Kenya, xmp:region=Africa etc. I realise that there is no tag xmp:region but I imagine that I can either create a user defined tag or I can find a similar tag within the existing tag structure. Can anyone give me some pointers as to how I might achieve this parsing process using Exiftool?

Thank you.

[Phil Harvey]

Let me warn you that this will require using some advanced features that may be confusing to an ExifTool newbie...

You can either create a set of user-defined composite tags based on Directory (see the sample config file for more information).  With this, an expression like this could be used to return the top-level directory name (let's assume this tag is called "Dir1" in the command-line below):

ValueConv => 'my @a=split m{/}, $val; $a[1]',

And $a[2] will return the next level, etc.

The command line would then look something like this:

exiftool "-xmp:region<Dir1" "-xmp:country<Dir2" ... -r BASE_DIR

where BASE_DIR is the root of your directory heirarchy.

Alternatively, you could do it using the advanced formatting feature.  The command is more complicated, but it doesn't require a custom configuration file.  For this, I would advise putting the arguments in a separate file since they are rather complex.  The argument file would then look something like this (let's call it "my.args"):

-xmp:region<${directory;my @a=split m{/};$_=$a[1]}
-xmp:country<${directory;my @a=split m{/};$_=$a[2]}
...

and a command would be:

exiftool -@ my.args -r BASE_DIR

- Phil

Disclaimer: I didn't have time to test any of this out, so I can't be sure there aren't any typos in my examples.  Read the application documenation for more details.

[gtrotter]

Thank you. That's fantastic support. They key here is the split function, which is the pointer that I was looking for. I will have a play and try and get this working. I do have another question but will put it in a separate thread.

Thanks