[SOLVED] automatically appending date to filenames of photos imported using shotwell or f-spot

adityavpratap · 11-26-2010, 09:40 PM

Hi,
Is there a way to automatically append date to the filenames of the photos imported using shotwell or f-spot?
Thanking you,

barriehie · 11-27-2010, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adityavpratap

Hi,
Is there a way to automatically append date to the filenames of the photos imported using shotwell or f-spot?
Thanking you,

This works. It takes name.jpg and renames to name-mmddyy.jpg:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
#
# Script by BH
#
ls -1 *.jpg | while read line
do
    echo $line | gawk '{ if($0) {sub(/\.jpg/, "", $0); print $0 }}' | while read newname
    do
        mv $newname.jpg $newname-$(date +%m%d%y).jpg
    done
done

exit 0

Must be in the directory you have the files in. If the file extension is not 'jpg' then edit the red text. I'm sure someone can come up with a sed one liner but that's not me!

adityavpratap · 11-27-2010, 08:39 PM

Hi,
Thanks for the script! :-)
So each time I import the photos, I should run the script. I mean, the script will append the date on which the script was run. So if the snaps were taken on, say 25th of Nov, and imported on the 28th, then the script will append the date 28th. This is not what I want. Is there a way the script extracts the date from EXIM data and appends it to the file-name? Or is there any Graphics software that does it? This way I will be able to catalog the files chronologically.

barriehie · 11-27-2010, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adityavpratap

Hi,
Thanks for the script! :-)
So each time I import the photos, I should run the script. I mean, the script will append the date on which the script was run. So if the snaps were taken on, say 25th of Nov, and imported on the 28th, then the script will append the date 28th. This is not what I want. Is there a way the script extracts the date from EXIM data and appends it to the file-name? Or is there any Graphics software that does it? This way I will be able to catalog the files chronologically.

That script will put the date that the script is run onto the filename. There's a package, exif, that can read/modify that data. Search your available packages for keyword exif and see what's available.

syg00 · 11-27-2010, 10:30 PM

"man jhead"

adityavpratap · 11-27-2010, 10:36 PM

Hi,
Thanks for the useful information! I have installed exif on my system.

$ exif -t 0x9003 filename.jpg

reveals the 'DateTimeOriginal' information in the following format -

Quote:

EXIF entry 'Date and Time (original)' (0x9003, 'DateTimeOriginal') exists in IFD 'EXIF':
Tag: 0x9003 ('DateTimeOriginal')
Format: 2 ('Ascii')
Components: 20
Size: 20
Value: 2010:11:27 14:35:52

EXIF entry 'Date and Time (original)' (0x9003, 'DateTimeOriginal') exists in IFD 'EXIF':
Tag: 0x9003 ('DateTimeOriginal')
Format: 2 ('Ascii')
Components: 20
Size: 20
Value: 2010:11:27 14:35:52

I am interested in the last line - Value : 2010:11:27 14:35:52

Is there a way I can extract it?

Thanking in advance,

adityavpratap · 11-28-2010, 12:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

"man jhead"

Thanks for directing me to jhead. But there is a small problem. If I issue the following command -

Quote:

$ jhead -n%f-%d%m%Y *.jpg

all the files are appropriately renamed. However if I try to rename all the files including those in sub-directories as -
[QUOTE]$ find . -name "*\.jpg" -exec jhead -n%f-%d%m%Y {} \;

the files are not being renamed.

adityavpratap · 11-29-2010, 05:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adityavpratap

Thanks for directing me to jhead. But there is a small problem. If I issue the following command -

all the files are appropriately renamed. However if I try to rename all the files including those in sub-directories as -

Quote:

$ find . -name "*\.jpg" -exec jhead -n%f-%d%m%Y {} \;

the files are not being renamed.

Ok, I was able to overcome this problem by using -nf instead of simply -n. Thanks!

aidan.whitehouse · 12-30-2010, 05:54 AM

Remember also the -ft option with jhead that will set the file modified datestamp to be the same as what is in the EXIF data. This makes it usable in file management applications like nautilus without renaming. I have a script that runs hourly to do this and also physically rotate pictures so that (predominantly Windows) applications that are too lazy to read this EXIF tag can view the images correctly. This solution may be a little more elegant, depending on what you want to achieve.

adityavpratap · 12-30-2010, 06:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aidan.whitehouse

Remember also the -ft option with jhead that will set the file modified datestamp to be the same as what is in the EXIF data. This makes it usable in file management applications like nautilus without renaming. I have a script that runs hourly to do this and also physically rotate pictures so that (predominantly Windows) applications that are too lazy to read this EXIF tag can view the images correctly. This solution may be a little more elegant, depending on what you want to achieve.

Thanks for your valuable input! The operative part of my script is -

Code:

find $SRCD -type f \( -name "*\.jpg" -o -name "*\.JPG" \) -exec jhead -nf%f-%d%m%Y {} \;

should I replace -nf with -ft ?