drewnoakes/metadata-extractor

Treat \0 as terminator in IPTC strings

Open

#122 opened on Sep 4, 2015

View on GitHub
 (1 comment) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Java (470 forks)batch import
bugformat-iptcgood-first-issuehelp wantedimage-queue

Repository metrics

Stars
 (2,411 stars)
PR merge metrics
 (Avg merge 3d 2h) (2 merged PRs in 30d)

Description

The below image, when passed through exiftool, reads the IPTC Source as "Getty Images North America".

When read with the IptcDirectory we're getting "Getty Images ����". On closer inspection it looks something more like: "Getty Images\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0003\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0005\u0000\u0000\u0000\n����".

The null character is often used to denote the end of a string - is this being respected? Or not as it's not part of the standard?

getty-borked

Contributor guide

Research direction
Investigate how IPTC strings are read in the IptcDirectory. Look for places where byte arrays are converted to strings, especially handling of null characters (0x00). The null character should terminate the string per IPTC conventions. Examine the parsing logic and compare with exiftool's behavior.
Tech stack
java
Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
Half day
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
Java
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
60