Incorrect Date Format

[BigBadWolf]

I have tried searching but lo luck so far. I am working with old files that do not have standard format for the timestamp in DateTimeOriginal.

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Date/Time Original              : 04/07/2003 00:09:40
Create Date                     : 04/07/2003 00:09:40

Is there a way to correct it?

[BigBadWolf]

Forgot to mention that file dates appear to be correct, and just Create Date and Date Time Original are in the wrong format.

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File Modification Date/Time     : 2003:04:16 09:52:06-07:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2017:05:05 23:49:53-07:00
File Creation Date/Time         : 2017:05:05 23:49:53-07:00

[StarGeek]

If you're sure that the FileModifyDate is correct as in your second listing, then you could use
exiftool -P "-alldates<FileModifyDate" FileOrDir

I included -P in this command so as not to change any of the file system timestamps just in case.

Otherwise, you could try this.  I haven't tested it since I can't replicate the mistake in your data.
exiftool "-alldates<${DateTimeOriginal;s/(\d\d)\/(/d/d)\/(\d{4}) (.*)/$3:$1:$2 $4/" FileOrDir

That's also assuming that you actually did take pictures about midnight as shown in your first post.

[BigBadWolf]

Unfortunately, filemodifydate is not correct, and I confirmed that DateTimeOriginal is correct.

I had to add -m to the line to ignore the warning message

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exiftool "-alldates<${DateTimeOriginal;s/(\d\d)\/(/d/d)\/(\d{4}) (.*)/$3:$1:$2 $4/" -m "file or DIR"
but the result is not what I expect

Before:

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Date/Time Original              : 04/07/2003 00:09:40
Create Date                     : 04/07/2003 00:09:40

After:

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Date/Time Original              : 2003:00:09 40:00:00
Create Date                     : 2003:00:09 40:00:00

message:

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Warning: Error rebuilding maker notes (may be corrupt)

[StarGeek]

Sorry, my mistake.  I forgot the closing brace.  The part of the line with $4 should be $4/}

I also found a several similar files in Phil's ExifTool Meta Information Repository (an HTC, ImpressCam, Rollei, SamsungDigimax, and UMAX) so I was able to test it.  In this case, even though there were minor errors, it was still able to write correctly without the -m option.

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C:\>exiftool -alldates "X:\!temp\NewDirectory\SamsungDigimax350SE.jpg"
Date/Time Original              : 2004/09/18 15:17:47
Create Date                     : 2004/09/18 15:17:47
Modify Date                     : 2004/09/18 15:17:47

C:\>exiftool -P -overwrite_original "-alldates<${DateTimeOriginal;s/(\d\d)\/(/d/d)\/(\d{4}) (.*)/$3:$1:$2 $4/}" "X:\!temp\NewDirectory\SamsungDigimax350SE.jpg"
Warning: [minor] Unrecognized MakerNotes - X:/!temp/NewDirectory/SamsungDigimax350SE.jpg
Warning: [minor] Maker notes could not be parsed - X:/!temp/NewDirectory/SamsungDigimax350SE.jpg
    1 image files updated

C:\>exiftool -alldates "X:\!temp\NewDirectory\SamsungDigimax350SE.jpg"
Date/Time Original              : 2004:09:18 15:17:47
Create Date                     : 2004:09:18 15:17:47
Modify Date                     : 2004:09:18 15:17:47

[BigBadWolf]

Great! Thank you!

With slight modification, it worked perfectly.

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exiftool "-alldates<${datetimeoriginal;s/(\d{2})\/(\d{2})\/(\d{4}) (.*)/$3:$1:$2 $4/}" "file or DIR"
Date/Time Original              : 2003:04:07 00:09:40
Create Date                     : 2003:04:07 00:09:40


BTW, looks like pictures were taken with DIGIMAX 350SE.

[Phil Harvey]

The reformatting shouldn't be necessary.  ExifTool is smart enough to figure it out with this command:

exiftool "-alldates<datetimeoriginal" "file or DIR"

See FAQ 5 for why this works.

- Phil

[BigBadWolf]

The reformatting shouldn't be necessary.  ExifTool is smart enough to figure it out with this command:

exiftool "-alldates<datetimeoriginal" "file or DIR"

See FAQ 5 for why this works.

- Phil

Phil, I tried that, and the date 04/07/2003 00:09:40 came out as 2003:00:09 40:00:00 instead of 2003:04:07 00:09:40. It seems like time was converted into date, and month and day was dropped.

[Phil Harvey]

RIght.  Sorry.  I was looking at the wrong example:

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Date/Time Original              : 2004/09/18 15:17:47

I didn't realize the date was in the wrong order in your files.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

Sorry, my mistake.  I was so excited to find files with incorrect DateTimeOriginal that I didn't notice that they weren't as bad as BigBadWolf's files.