Image::...gInfoXML(3)

💖 Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because this is the Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation, section 3 of your man pages, and it is lowkey the behind-the-scenes queen of the whole ExifTool operation. 👑

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✨ NAME ✨

Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML — read/write tag information XML database. that's it, that's the whole vibe. it reads it, it writes it, it slays. 🎀

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so here's the tea: this module is what you use to generate an XML database out of all the ExifTool tag information. every single crumb of it. 💅

and then — plot twist — once you've got that XML database, you can edit it and use it to re-generate the language modules (Image::ExifTool::Lang::*). it's giving source-of-truth energy. it's giving pipeline. it's giving i contain multitudes. 🦋

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🧚 METHODS 🧚

💫 Write

prints out the complete tag information database in XML format. full send, no holding back.

# save list of all tags
$success = Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML::Write('dst.xml');

# list all IPTC tags to console, including Flags
Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML::Write(undef, 'IPTC', Flags => 1);

# write all EXIF Camera tags to file
Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML::Write($outfile, 'exif:camera');

Inputs:

• 0) — [optional] output file name, or undef if you want it to go to the console instead. heads up: if that output file already exists, it's getting overwritten. no takebacks, no "are you sure", it's just gone. 💀
• 1) — [optional] a string of group names, separated by colons, that says which group to print. ⚠️ important caveat: you can't specify a particular IFD as a group, because EXIF tags might get written to any IFD. if you don't specify anything, it saves all the groups. generous of it, honestly.
• 2) — [optional] a hash of option values:
  • Flags — set it to output the 'flags' attribute
  • NoDesc — set it to suppress output of descriptions (shy mode 🙈)
  • Lang — pick a single language for the output

Return Value:

• True on success. 🫶

Sample XML Output:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<taginfo>

<table name='XMP::dc' g0='XMP' g1='XMP-dc' g2='Other'>
 <desc lang='en'>XMP Dublin Core</desc>
 <tag id='title' name='Title' type='lang-alt' writable='true' g2='Image'>
  <desc lang='en'>Title</desc>
  <desc lang='de'>Titel</desc>
  <desc lang='fr'>Titre</desc>
 </tag>
 ...
</table>

</taginfo>

and about those Flags — if you selected them and they're actually available, they show up formatted as a comma-separated list of these possible values:

• Avoid
• Binary
• List
• Mandatory
• Permanent
• Protected
• Unknown
• Unsafe

for the lore on what these flags actually mean, go read the tag name documentation and lib/Image/ExifTool/README. 📚

oh and one more thing: for XMP List tags, the list type — Alt, Bag or Seq — also gets output as a flag, if it applies. ✨

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🌈 BuildLangModules

builds all the Image::ExifTool::Lang modules from an XML database file. glow-up for your whole language folder. 💖

Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML::BuildLangModules('src.xml');

Inputs:

• 0) — XML file name
• 1) — update flags:
  • 0x01 = preserve version numbers
  • 0x02 = update all modules, even if they didn't change
  • 0x04 = update from scratch, ignoring existing definitions
  • 0x08 = override existing different descriptions and values

Return Value:

• the number of modules updated, or a negative number if something went wrong. 😭

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Copyright 2003-2026, Phil Harvey (philharvey66 at gmail.com)

this library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. iconic behavior, honestly.

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🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

• Image::ExifTool(3pm)
• Image::ExifTool::TagNames(3pm)

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💅 no cap, you now know this module better than most people ever will. this was perl v5.42.1, dated 2026-03-31, from the User Contributed Perl Documentation — go forth and XML-ify, you absolute main character. 🦋💖✨