A program to insert the date/time a digital still image was taken into its file name
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Exif ("Exchangeable image file format for Digital Still Cameras") is a standard for storing extended meta information in image files (e.g. exposure time or whether the flash fired when the image was taken). It is nowadays used by almost all digital cameras, but since it is downward compatible, you may not even have noticed that the JPEG files your camera creates contain more information than the image itself.
The Exif standard also specifies an attribute which records the date and time an image was taken. Exifdater can retrieve this information from Exif JPEG files (Exif information can also be included within other file formats, but only JPEG is supported by this program) and insert it into the file name. This is particularly useful for easy chronological sorting of images taken with different cameras and to preserve the timestamp if using image processing software, which often discards the Exif metadata.
Obviously, for all this to be useful, the digital camera needs to be equipped with a real-time clock (unfortunately, not every model is). Exifdater also evaluates the Exif modification timestamp and can alternatively use the file system modification timestamp.
In detail, this program does the following: If the DateTimeOriginal attribute is present and contains a useful value, SubsecTimeOriginal is also evaluated and the resulting combined timestamp is used for renaming. If not, the value of the DateTime attribute is used (if it seems useful); any subsecond information possibly present is ignored in this case. "Useful" in this case means "year > 0" since many digicams without real-time clock insert DateTime and DateTimeOriginal attributes with all date and time fields filled with zeros (instead of spaces as the standard suggests). If the -f option is specified, no Exif data is examined at all.
The image files are only opened read-only and renamed, so this program is highly unlikely to do any damage to your image collection. Please remember, however, that there is ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY that it doesn't. You are, of course, cordially invited to inspect the source code yourself in case of doubts.
This program is released under the GPL.
Comments are welcome:
Version 1.0, 2003-05-14 (83K zip file), contains
Created 2003-09, last changed 2007-02 (broken links fixed, EXIF 2.2 note added) - Georg Neugschwandtner