Problem concerning the displayed creation date of files without EXIF data.

[Thomas-240]

Hi all,

since a few days I am using digiKam 0.10.0 and I have to say it is a
great piece of software!!
But now I am a bit confused about the dates shown in digiKam.

In the thumbnail view there are shown two dates below each image, the
creation date as well as the modification date. For all of my pictures
containing EXIF data the dates are like I would expect. But for movies
as well as images without EXIF data it's a bit confusing. There, the
modified date matches the date the movie was taken, but the creation
date seems to be not really related to the file. The sad thing for me is
that the creation date is used for the timeline and thus all my movies
appear at the wrong date.

Here an example:
PICT0003.mov
created: 12.08.2008 (I have no idea what I did with the file on this
day)
modified: 16.05.2004  (on this day the movie was taken)

The strange thing is that the date shown as "created" is not equal to
the mtime, ctime, or utime of the file (according to "ls -l", "ls -lc",
and "ls -lu").

So finally, here are my questions:
- Where does the date that is taken as the creation date by digiKam come
from?
- And, is there any possibility to replace the date stored as "created"
by the date stored as "modified"? I have several hundred images and
movies without EXIF data, so adjusting the date for each image by hand
using the menu is not a real option.

My system:
Ubuntu 9.04 (Linux 2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:57:59
UTC 2009)
Gnome 2.26.1

I would be really pleased for any kind of help.
Thanks a lot.
Thomas
 


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On Wednesday 13 May 2009 17:29:51 Thomas wrote:

> So finally, here are my questions:
> - Where does the date that is taken as the creation date by digiKam come
> from?

I suppose this is data related to some filesystem acitivity (in spite of lack
of hits with `ls`): copied to disc, moved, etc. OR date of import to digiKam
database.

> - And, is there any possibility to replace the date stored as "created"
> by the date stored as "modified"? I have several hundred images and
> movies without EXIF data, so adjusting the date for each image by hand
> using the menu is not a real option.

There is Adjust Data/Time kipi-plugin (menu Image).

m.
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[Thomas-240]

Thanks for your quick response.

> > So finally, here are my questions:
> > - Where does the date that is taken as the creation date by digiKam come
> > from?
>
> I suppose this is data related to some filesystem acitivity (in spite of lack
> of hits with `ls`): copied to disc, moved, etc. OR date of import to digiKam
> database.

Yes, some filesystem activity seem to be the most probable reason,
because I do have the digikam database since only a few days, and the
shown dates are in 2008.
Nevertheless, it is strange, that I can't reproduce the dates in a
terminal using 'ls' or something similar.


> > - And, is there any possibility to replace the date stored as "created"
> > by the date stored as "modified"? I have several hundred images and
> > movies without EXIF data, so adjusting the date for each image by hand
> > using the menu is not a real option.
>
> There is Adjust Data/Time kipi-plugin (menu Image).

The problem with this menu is that, as far I can see, I can't use it for
batch processing as I would need it. Because the real dates of taking
the movies is not related at all to the dates shown as 'created'-date.
Thus I can't use the first two options. And since there is no
EXIF/IPTC/XMP data I can't use option three. So, the only possibility
would be to adapt each date by hand for several hundred movies, which is
not really what I want ;o).

Or do I have misunderstood any of the options or missed any other
possibility?

Thanks for your help.
Regards
Thomas

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On Wednesday 13 May 2009 19:53:41 Thomas wrote:
> Nevertheless, it is strange, that I can't reproduce the dates in a
> terminal using 'ls' or something similar.

You can check output of exiftool option and look for a possible date there.
But if digiKam knows about that date it should be also somewhere in metadata
tab on the right somewhere (EXIF, IPTC, XMP).

> Or do I have misunderstood any of the options or missed any other
> possibility?

No. Unfortunately you understand well these options.

m.
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[Thomas-240]

Am Donnerstag, den 14.05.2009, 19:52 +0200 schrieb Mikolaj Machowski:
> On Wednesday 13 May 2009 19:53:41 Thomas wrote:
> > Nevertheless, it is strange, that I can't reproduce the dates in a
> > terminal using 'ls' or something similar.
>
> You can check output of exiftool option and look for a possible date there.
> But if digiKam knows about that date it should be also somewhere in metadata
> tab on the right somewhere (EXIF, IPTC, XMP).

Since, the files are movies, there are no EXIF, IPTC, or XMP data.
Furthermore, the shown "created"-date is years after making the movies.
Probably, the date is the day when I copied the files to the hard drive.
But the problem is that I cannot reproduce the date in a terminal,
therefore, I have no idea how I could adjust this date to the real
creation date.

Maybe, someone could tell which C++ function is used to determine the
creation date if no metadate can be found. This could help me to find a
way to adjust all creation-dates in a batch process.

Thanks a lot!
Thomas



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On Friday 15 May 2009 23:29:06 Thomas wrote:

> Am Donnerstag, den 14.05.2009, 19:52 +0200 schrieb Mikolaj Machowski:
> > On Wednesday 13 May 2009 19:53:41 Thomas wrote:
> > > Nevertheless, it is strange, that I can't reproduce the dates in a
> > > terminal using 'ls' or something similar.
> >
> > You can check output of exiftool option and look for a possible date
> > there. But if digiKam knows about that date it should be also somewhere
> > in metadata tab on the right somewhere (EXIF, IPTC, XMP).
>
> Since, the files are movies, there are no EXIF, IPTC, or XMP data.
> Furthermore, the shown "created"-date is years after making the movies.
> Probably, the date is the day when I copied the files to the hard drive.

No, this is modification date and this is correct (unless you store those
files elsewhere for long time before copying to current location). BTW this is
why metadata is so important should support more than just image formats, but
this is digression.

> But the problem is that I cannot reproduce the date in a terminal,
> therefore, I have no idea how I could adjust this date to the real
> creation date.
>
> Maybe, someone could tell which C++ function is used to determine the
> creation date if no metadate can be found. This could help me to find a
> way to adjust all creation-dates in a batch process.

On Linux (and most other systems) there is no way for system to know creation
date of file. What is mostly used for that purpose is mtime - modification
time. Far from perfect but good enough for most purposes - for examply in your
case it is correct. digiKam takes data about creation from metadata, because
in that case there were none metadata it used probably some database related
activity.

What you need is to put modification date somewhere in digikam database but I
don't know where...

m.

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[Thomas-240]

> What you need is to put modification date somewhere in digikam database but I
> don't know where...

Still, I do not know where digikam gets the creation date from if there
is no metadata in the file.
But "database" was a good hint. I could take the modifications dates
(which are in my case the real dates of taking the movies) and set them
as creation dates by directly modifying the digikam database.

For all people with a similar problem, here is the way I did it:
I opened the digikam database file (in my case: digikam4.db), which is a
sqlite database, with sqliteadmin running under wine. There I performed
the following SQL query:

UPDATE ImageInformation
SET creationDate = (SELECT Images.modificationDate FROM Images WHERE
ImageInformation.imageid = Images.id)
WHERE digitizationDate is null

The "WHERE digitizationDate is null" is used to adjust the creation date
only of those files without metadata.

For me this query worked fine. But of course someone should only try
this if he/she knows what this stuff is doing. Adapting the digikam
database directly could destroy it! So always make a backup before.

So, I am happy now :o)
Thanks for the hint with the database. And maybe, I could help somebody
with the sql stuff.

Best wishes
Thomas


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