EXIFCOM(1)

📦 version 1.01, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 EXIFCOM(1) — it's giving "General Commands Manual" energy 💖

okay bestie, so this is a section 1 manual page (General Commands Manual, that's the whole flex) for a lil utility called exifcom, and I'm gonna walk you through it like we're texting at 2am. no gatekeeping here. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

exifcom — display or set the UserComment tag contained in a JPEG Exif section

like. that's the whole job. read it, or write it. icon behavior.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

exifcom [ -bfinv ] [ -w comment ] [ -s delim ] file ...

yes the flags are all squished together, that's just how Unix do. 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the vibe: when you run exifcom with no arguments, it prints the contents of the Exif UserComment tag inside file straight to standard output. that's it. that's the read.

But if you do pass options, then depending on what you picked, exifcom will either blank the tag or set it to comment. main character choices only.

Now, some digital cameras include a standard UserComment tag in the Exif data they slap onto the image files they produce. this tag is fixed-length and it supports multi-byte character sets — though, and I need you to hear me on this, exifcom does not. 🙈 also note: not all cameras will include the tag. some of them are simply not that girl.

The utility is conservative in its approach to writing the UserComment tag. it does not modify, extend, or otherwise adulterate an image's Exif metadata structure. when it writes the tag it merely changes pre-allocated bytes. so basically exifcom is at the mercy of whoever created the Exif data — for both whether the tag even exists and how long it is. it cannot create a UserComment tag when the camera didn't include one, and it cannot write a comment longer than the space the camera pre-allocated. and exifcom only displays and writes ASCII character set comments. periodt.

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -b — Blank the UserComment tag, overwriting both the character code and comment fields with NUL. the character code is what specifies how the comment is represented; it's "undefined" when blank. this is the state to which many cameras initialize the tag, lowkey. and when you use this together with the -w option, exifcom will blank the comment prior to setting it to comment. clean slate energy.
  • -f — Overwrite or blank existing or unsupported comments without prompting for confirmation. no questions, just vibes.
  • -i — Write a prompt to standard error before overwriting or blanking an existing or unsupported comment. if the response from standard input begins with 'y' or 'Y', the comment is overwritten. this option is default behavior, so if you did nothing, congrats, you already chose this.
  • -n — Do not overwrite or blank existing or unsupported comments and do not prompt for confirmation (i.e., automatically answer 'no' to a confirmation prompt). this option takes precedence over both the -f and -i options. it's the final boss of the flag hierarchy.
  • -s — Separate field name and value in the verbose and multiple file cases with the string delim. the default is ': '.
  • -v — Be verbose when printing the contents of the UserComment tag. besides the comment itself (if present and supported), exifcom will display the maximum comment length supported, the character code of the comment, and the length of the comment. it's giving "tell me everything." 👑
  • -w — Set UserComment to the ASCII string comment. if comment is longer than what the tag supports, it will be truncated to fit. sorry babe, the tag said no.

😭 DIAGNOSTICS 😭

The exifcom utility exits 0 on success. 🎉

When displaying a comment from a single file:

  1. if the UserComment tag is missing, it exits 1
  2. if blank, it exits 2
  3. if in an unsupported character code, it exits 3

Otherwise, it exits 1 if an error occurs.

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

exiftags(1), exiftime(1)

go read those next bestie, they're the extended universe.

🌈 STANDARDS 🌈

The exifcom utility was developed using the January 2002 Exif standard, version 2.2 (http://tsc.jeita.or.jp/).

💀 BUGS 💀

If the tag doesn't exist or is too short, too bad.

that's it. that's the bug report. brutal. iconic.

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

The exifcom utility and this man page were written by Eric M. Johnston <emj@postal.net>.

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🧚 this came to you from the EXIFCOM(1) page in the General Commands Manual, so if you're keeping track at home, that's the manual name and everything. mwah, go read your Exif data, you got this. 💖✨🍓

📦 where this page comes from