Renaming files using current Parent Directory in name but not rest of path

[chambrick]

I'm trying to pull all photos from a directory structure with the following rules

The EXIF information will put the file in the year folder, and month folder.
Within that folder I want to name the file using the files current parent folder plus the EXIF hour,minute,second and add number if duplicate.

So:  /Users/Yoyo/Documents/whatever/x/y/coolevent/image_123.jpg  with EXIF date info of something like 12-7-11 11-12-20

would get moved to

specificpath/2012/07/coolevent-11-12-20.jpg

and if there was a duplicate the next one would be

specificpath/2012/07/coolevent-11-12-20-1.jpg

I've got this far:

exiftool  -r -d /Volumes/My\ HD/Photos\ Processed/%Y/%m/%%-.1d-%H%M%S%%-nc.%%e "-filename<alldates" /Volumes/My\ HD/Photos\ To\ Process/

The last piece of the puzzle is that it still uses the files full directory path and I can't figure out how to fix the %%-.1d regex to ignore all but the parent (or maybe worded differently use 1 level up)

Help!

[Phil Harvey]

This is a bit tricky, and it will take me some time to prepare an answer, but it is bed time now so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

- Phil

[chambrick]

Now I don't feel so dumb.

[Phil Harvey]

The trick is that you want part of the directory specification in between two date/time fields.  You can't do this with the simple date/time formatting unless it can be accomplished with %d as you have tried.  But in this case, %d doesn't give you enough flexibility to extract a variable-length directory name from the path.

Instead, I will do this using the advanced formatting feature:

exiftool -r -d /Volumes/My\ HD/Photos\ Processed/%Y/%m '-filename<$datetimeoriginal/${directory;s(.*/)()}-${datetimeoriginal#;s/.* //;tr/:/-/}%-c.%e' /Volumes/My\ HD/Photos\ To\ Process/

Note that you can't use AllDates here, so you must duplicate the filename assignment using other date/time tags (in reverse order of precedence) if you want to have fallback date/time tags.

Here is an breakdown of what I am writing to FileName:

$datetimeoriginal/ - formatted date/time used for the directory specification

${directory;s(.*/)()} first part of file name is last directory in path, so delete everything up to and including the last "/".

-${datetimeoriginal#;s/.* //;tr/:/-/} - start from unformatted ("#") date/time, remove the date, then translate ":" to "-"

%-c.%e - add count if necessary, separated by a "-", and extension

- Phil

[chambrick]

Awesome.  Thanks so much for your time.

Follow up question.

To compensate for the inability to use AllDates do I use the filename assignments all in one exiftool command or do I need to do separate statements?

[Phil Harvey]

All in one.  Reverse order of precedence.

- Phil

[chambrick]

I'm finally getting back to this.

The following code:

exiftool -r -d /Volumes/Pincu\ HD/TestExif//%Y/ '-filename<$filemodifydate/${directory;s(.*/)()}—${filemodifydate#;s/.* //;tr/:/-/}%-c.%e' '-filename<$createddate/${directory;s(.*/)()}—${createddate#;s/.* //;tr/:/-/}%-c.%e' '-filename<$datetimeoriginal/${directory;s(.*/)()}—${datetimeoriginal#;s/.* //;tr/:/-/}%-c.%e' /Volumes/Pincu\ HD/TestExif/

gives me file names with Directory--hour-minute-second-plus count if necessary.extension

I need to edit the code to give me

Directory--4 digit year-month-day-hour-minute-second-plus count if necessary.extentions
or
Directory--4 digit year-month-day-hourminutesecond-plus count if necessary.extentions

whichever is easier (i'm guessing you get one you add the dashes in to the other eh)

[Phil Harvey]

Sure.  Everywhere in the command, change this

s/.* //;tr/:/-/

to this

tr/: /--/

- Phil

[chambrick]

EXCELLENT!  Thank you.

[chambrick]

Phil,

You've been a wonderful help thus far so I HAD to donate.

The code from your last post was perfect...and will work with my archiving workflow.

Now I need to modify it slightly for importing into photo software...and I just can't get it right.

I'm using Hazel to move over files and this code will run on each file rather than a whole directory.

1.  So I need to pass the file name to the command and run it on a single file.

...help.

[chambrick]

...and then one (hopefully final) thing is that in renaming the file I'd like to put it in a new folder with the name  folder-YYYY-mm

[chambrick]

I thought it might be something like this:

exiftool -d '-filename<$filemodifydate/Volumes/HD/Users/Me/Desktop/ExifTesting/{directory;s(.*/)()}/' '-filename<$filemodifydate/${directory;s(.*/)()}—${filemodifydate#;tr/: /--/}%-c.%e'/Volumes/HD/Users/Me/Desktop/ExifTesting/mytestimage.jpg


(using only one of the dates to keep it simple while testing)

...but no go.

[Phil Harvey]

1.  So I need to pass the file name to the command and run it on a single file.

I'm not sure I understand.  Just specify the file name instead of the directory name in the exiftool command.

...and then one (hopefully final) thing is that in renaming the file I'd like to put it in a new folder with the name  folder-YYYY-mm

I'm not sure I understand.  The command moves the file to the folder specified in the command.  Do you want to change this folder?

I thought it might be something like this:

exiftool -d '-filename<$filemodifydate/Volumes/HD/Users/Me/Desktop/ExifTesting/{directory;s(.*/)()}/' '-filename<$filemodifydate/${directory;s(.*/)()}—${filemodifydate#;tr/: /--/}%-c.%e'/Volumes/HD/Users/Me/Desktop/ExifTesting/mytestimage.jpg

You forgot a date/time format string for the -d option.  Also, why are you putting FileModifyDate before "/Volumes" in the file path?  It is hard for me to help if you don't give me a specific example of the source and destination file paths that you want.

- Phil

[chambrick]

That's what I get for doing stuff too late at night when exhausted.

When I CORRECTLY put the file and file path in it works.

When running the below command on an image from July 2012

exiftool -r -d /Volumes/HSI-HD/Users/Me/Desktop/ExifTesting/MyEvent//%Y/ '-filename<$filemodifydate/${directory;s(.*/)()}—${filemodifydate#;tr/: /--/}%-c.%e' '-filename<$createdate/${directory;s(.*/)()}—${createdate#;tr/: /--/}%-c.%e' '-filename<$datetimeoriginal/${directory;s(.*/)()}—${datetimeoriginal#;tr/: /--/}%-c.%e' /Volumes/HSI-HD/Users/Me/Desktop/ExifTesting/MyEvent/temp.jpg

Renames the file correctly and puts it in /Volumes/HSI-HD/Users/Me/Desktop/ExifTesting/MyEvent/2012

Now I'd like to change the code to put it in /Volumes/HSI-HD/Users/Me/Desktop/ExifTesting/MyEvent-2012-07

[Phil Harvey]

OK then, change the -d option to this:

-d /Volumes/HSI-HD/Users/Me/Desktop/ExifTesting/MyEvent-%Y-%m/

- Phil