libexif ------- DESCRIPTION ----------- libexif is a library for parsing, editing, and saving EXIF data. It is intended to replace lots of redundant implementations in command-line utilities and programs with GUIs. FEATURES -------- libexif supports parsing, editing and saving of EXIF data. In addition, it has gettext support. All EXIF tags described in EXIF standard 2.1 (and most from 2.2) are supported. Many maker notes from Canon, Casio, Epson, Fuji, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and Sanyo cameras are also supported. REQUIREMENTS ------------ libexif is written in plain C and does not require any additional library. GNU gettext will be used for language translation, if available. LIMITATIONS ----------- libexif can only handle some maker notes, and even those not very well. More work needs to be done. Note that libmnote has been merged with libexif - it is no longer needed. USAGE ----- We have documented the libexif API using doxygen and are making the results available at http://libexif.sourceforge.net/api/ The short test programs in the test directory illustrates how to create valid EXIF data from scratch, how to save EXIF data and how to load EXIF data from data in memory. There are also a few simple example programs available in the contrib/examples/ directory. Don't hesitate to contact us at if you have any questions on how to use libexif. To link to libexif into your own package, we recommend using the pkgconfig utility (cf. http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/pkg-config/ For your convenience, libexif both provides libexif-uninstalled.pc and installs libexif.pc. FRONTENDS --------- Right now, I know of the following frontends to libexif: - exif: A small command-line utility to show EXIF information in JPEG files (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/libexif). - gexif: A GTK+ frontend for editing EXIF data (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/libexif). - gphoto2: A command-line frontend to libgphoto2, a library to access a wide range of digital cameras (http://www.gphoto.org). - gtkam: A GTK+ frontend to libgphoto2 (http://www.gphoto.org). - thirdeye: Digital photos organizer and driver for eComStation (http://ecomstation.ru/thirdeye). - digikam: digital photo management application for KDE (http://www.digikam.org/) If you would like to migrate your program to use libexif or add EXIF support to it, don't hesitate to contact the authors. LIBRARIES --------- I know of the following libraries that use or have been inspired by libexif: - libexif-gtk: library of widgets to help display EXIF tags in GTK programs (part of the libexif project) - pel: PHP-Code (http://pel.sourceforge.net) BUILDING -------- It really depends on your environment what to do in order to get libexif to build. Building from the source tar ball usually involves the commands: ./configure make sudo make install When building from source out of CVS, something like the following will be necessary: gettextize mv po/Makevars.template po/Makevars aclocal -I auto-m4 -I m4m autoheader libtoolize --force automake --add-missing autoconf ./configure make Or, probably just: autoreconf -i ./configure make Besides the standard arguments, configure takes several specific to libexif: --disable-docs To disable producing any documentation --enable-internal-docs Build internal code docs if Doxygen available --enable-ship-binaries To include Windows DLLs in 'make dist' Certain specialized applications can reduce the size of the libexif binary by setting one or both of the following macros in the CPPFLAGS environment variable at configure time. Each one removes certain kinds of text strings and constants from the binary. Applications which need to access specific, known EXIF tags and know in advance the meaning of their data have no need of those strings and can save considerable space by eliminating them. -DNO_VERBOSE_TAG_STRINGS Names and descriptions of EXIF tags, debug messages, mandatory EXIF fields (disabling auto-tag-fixup) -DNO_VERBOSE_TAG_DATA Names of enumerated tag data contents INTERNATIONALIZATION -------------------- The libexif translations are made by volunteers working on their own, either directly with the libexif project or through one of two translation coordination sites, the Translation Project and Launchpad . Any updates to language translations coordinated by the Translation Project must be made through their web site, but all other languages can be updated either through Launchpad (preferred) or by sending updates to the libexif developers mailing list directly. As of this writing, the following languages must be updated through the Translation Project: cs da de es fr it ja nl pl sk sv uk vi If you are interested in translating libexif into a new language, we recommend that you join one of the above translation groups and take advantage of the systems they have built to help you. A translation disclaimer is NOT required for libexif at the Translation Project; by making a translation, you agree implicitly to provide it under the same license terms as the rest of libexif (LGPL). AUTHORS ------- libexif has originally been written by Curtis Galloway . Because of the original design not supporting editing and saving, Lutz Mueller rewrote libexif from scratch. Since then, many more people have contributed to libexif. LINKS ----- Some links you might want to check out if you are interested in further information about EXIF. - http://drewnoakes.com/code/exif: metadata extraction framework in Java - http://www.exif.org: information about the EXIF standard. - http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/index.html: Looks like libexif in Perl. Seems to support a lot of MakerNotes.