Data-driven categories: "Value Splitting" character: comma vs. semicolon

[axel.hennig]

Hello,

I made a Metadata Template "Categories to XMP Supplemental Categories" with the following setting:
- Tags: XMP::photoshop\SupplementalCategories
- Fill the tag from this data: {File.Categories}

When I hover the mouse over "File.Categories" in the Variable Selector I see (";" (semicolon) as category-separator): Objects|Cars;Persons|Mayer, Tom;Persons|Smith, John

The picture with filled metadata in the ExifTool Command Processor shows:

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[XMP-photoshop] Supplemental Categories         : Objects|Cars, Persons|Mayer, Tom, Persons|Smith, John

So ExifTool shows a "," (comma) as category-separator.

When I want to reimport the categories from the filled xmp-field and I choose "," (comma) as value splitting character in the edit data-driven category box I get:

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John
Objects
  Cars
Persons
  Mayer
  Smith
Tom

When I reimport the categories with "~;" (semicolon) as value splitting character I get:

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Objects
  Cars
Persons
  Mayer, Tom
  Smith, John

Can somebody explain this behaviour? Why is IMatch accepting two different value splitting characters? It should be just one. And which one is the "real" one?

Please find attached some (explaining) screenshots and the testpicture (as zip-file).

Thanks
Axel

@Mario: Would it be possible to control the category-separator in the Metadata Template?

[Mario]

1. Supplemental categories have been declared as deprecated by the IPTC 10 years ago. They should not be used for new files anymore. The XMP tag is just there for historical reasons and for old files. That's why this is not part of the IPTCCore or IPTCExt namespaces in XMP and has been moved to the photoshop namespace.

2. Variables use the default 'list separator' (; usually) when returning values for repeatable metadata tags or, in this case, categories. Check the variable you use in your metadata template in the Var Toy app.

3. What ExifTool uses as a list separator does not concern IMatch.

Why are you throwing the ExifTool Command Processor into this?
When you run your template, what does the metadata panel in IMatch show afterwards? Does it show the values for supplemental categories properly separated with a ; ? In that case the category levels have been split properly.

When I setup a template and just use the deprecated tag as the target and {File.Categories} as the source, I get the expected result. Looks good to me.

Note: ExifTool will display repeatable tags with a , as default. See the ExifTool command line reference for details and ways to change that.

[axel.hennig]

Hi Mario,

as always: Thank you very much for your (great and fast) help.

Axel