Propagation - excluding a tag fails for one use case

[PandDLong]

I found an odd situation in propagation when trying to exclude a tag using the Advanced option.   

I suspect it is an exiftool issue but my exiftools skills are too weak to test my theory.  I did try multiple situations in IMatch and ended up identifying the following test case which demonstrates this unexpected result:

   1. Check the box to propagate all IPTC Core and IPTC Extension

   2. Exclude IPTC Extension tags: Digital Source Type & Episode Name

   3. Values for each tag in the master, no values in the version

Upon propagation, the Episode Name is still propagated.  If the version had a value for that tag, then the 'exclude' command works and the tag is not propagated.  


So, where the exclude tag syntax seems to fail is:

    a. The tag is part of a structure
    b. The version has no value for the tag


Definitely an edge case... or I have been starting at the screen too long and have got this mixed up.

Michael

[Mario]

Not everything can work in all situations. Structured tags are complex. ExifTool sometimes does some magic things, sometimes tags are linked or it can copy only entire structured tags but not parts. I don't know. I'm no metadata expert.

Users sometimes try to do things which just don't work. I've spent too many months of my lifetime with metadata edge cases and I have lost interest. Metadata propagation works great for the vast majority of users (who have a use for it), and it is very, very complex internally.

That it does not work in each and every edge case users come up with is just inevitable. I have spent too many months of my lifetime chasing metadata edge cases which might affect 0.005% of the IMatch user base.

I suggest you consider e.g. running an ExifTool Command Prompt preset or maybe an exiftool.exe command linke that removes the unwanted tags.