Bug#1023889: libimage-exiftool-perl: exiftool ignores GPSLongitudeRef option

[Andreas Tille]

Package: libimage-exiftool-perl
Version: 12.49+dfsg-1
Severity: important

Hi,

since some time I'm tagging my scans from analog images with geoinformation
by using scripts calling exiftool.  Here is an example line for one of my
images:

exiftool -overwrite_original -quiet -GPSLatitudeRef='N' -GPSLatitude='64 deg 8'' 51.464"'  -GPSLongitudeRef='W' -GPSLongitude='21 deg 55'' 59.700"' 20010712_210000_mediafix_img_0254*.jpg*

Since this is in Iceland it has -GPSLongitudeRef='W' set and this worked
at least until
   Date:   Sat Jun 13 22:14:57 2020 +0200
according to my GPS log.  Since I'm using testing this was probably

libimage-exiftool-perl (11.99-1) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Import upstream version 11.99.

 -- gregor herrmann <gregoa at debian.org>  Fri, 15 May 2020 17:50:20 +0200

At that time the result of the line above was:

 $ exiftool 20010712_210000_mediafix_img_0254o_.jpg  | grep GPS
GPS Version ID                  : 2.3.0.0
GPS Latitude Ref                : North
GPS Longitude Ref               : West
GPS Latitude                    : 64 deg 8' 51.46" N
GPS Longitude                   : 21 deg 55' 59.70" W
GPS Position                    : 64 deg 8' 51.46" N, 21 deg 55' 59.70" W

If I redo the very same command line above I get:

 $ exiftool 20010712_210000_mediafix_img_0254o_.jpg  | grep GPS
GPS Version ID                  : 2.3.0.0
GPS Latitude Ref                : North
GPS Longitude Ref               : East
GPS Latitude                    : 64 deg 8' 51.46" N
GPS Longitude                   : 21 deg 55' 59.70" E
GPS Position                    : 64 deg 8' 51.46" N, 21 deg 55' 59.70" E

So the image is not *West* any more but rather *East* no - so all my
images would be moved if I would rerun my scripts (which I'm doing from
time to time when I might add new coordinates).

I did some web search on that matter and found

   https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=10163.0

but this is talking about versions 19.4x and I'm very sure I was
successfully working with some 11.[89]x version.  So this is IMHO a
regression.

Either there could be some fix for the code to get the old behaviour
back or at least the documentation should be fixed about the
GPSLongitudeRef option.  In the latter case I can search-and-replace
my scripts.

I'm just reporting the issue in the Debian BTW.  I'd volunteer to
contact upstream about this if you are busy with other stuff in
the Perl team.  Just drop me a note if you want me to do so.

Kind regards
   Andreas.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: bookworm/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (501, 'testing'), (50, 'buildd-unstable'), (50, 'unstable'), (5, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.0.0-3-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages libimage-exiftool-perl depends on:
ii  perl  5.36.0-4

Versions of packages libimage-exiftool-perl recommends:
ii  libarchive-zip-perl        1.68-1
ii  libunicode-linebreak-perl  0.0.20190101-1+b5

Versions of packages libimage-exiftool-perl suggests:
ii  libposix-strptime-perl  0.13-2+b1

-- no debconf information