Branding XMP Sidecar Files with J

During my long and not-so-storied IT career I covertly dispatched “irritants” with the J programming language. An irritant is an annoying software problem that does not merit a full-blown project-style approach. The last thing you want when dealing with irritants is to drag in IT bureaucrats. You know of whom I speak: the niggling little project-managing creatures that always turn little problems into bigger problems. Do you remember “Agile” when it was actually Agile? Now that I am tentatively retired¹ I no longer deal with IT bureaucrats but irritants still abound and I still use J to dispatch them. In my next three posts, I will show J solutions to some irritants that may be annoying you.

Today’s irritant comes from my photography hobby. I have been taking pictures since I was eight years old. To give you a sense of how anal-retentive I am, I still have film negatives from childhood! Since the year 2000, I have been editing and uploading digital images. You can see many of them on my SmugMug site. My editing process uses a veritable software zoo. As I work on an image, I flip from one program to another. Some programs respect and maintain image metadata and others do not. At the end of my pipeline, I rename the image file to something meaningful² even though renaming makes it difficult to go back to the original file later.

If you edit images, you know the job is never done. You can always “improve” a picture or cast it in a new light. I resist the urge to revamp old renderings but sometimes, maybe years later, I will go back to the original to “fix” things. Unfortunately, by renaming files it’s not always easy to find the original image.

This is a common DAM (Digital Asset Management) problem!

There are scores of image database programs, and you would think that image databases would generate stable image keys. Most of them do, but their keys are typically useful only in the context of the database. You need a key tied to the unique bit pattern of the original image file. You need a proper hash.

Once you recognize the need for proper hashes the question becomes, “Where do you store them?” You might think a file’s EXIF or ITPC metadata would be the ideal location. I tried this approach. Using the superb exiftool, I inserted hashes in images only to watch various editors strip or mangle them later on. The XMP (eXtensible Metadata Platform) sidecar³ file was created to address this and other irritants. The XMP sidecar file provides a safe home for image metadata with the added bonus that you never need to touch or alter the original image file. If you don’t treat your original RAWs like sacred bytes there’s something wrong with you.

Darktable, my current favorite RAW developer, creates and maintains XMPs when you add images to its library or apply non-destructive edits. Darktable’s edits are stored in sidecar XMPs leaving the originals unmolested. When you export a developed image Darktable creates a copy of the original, applies all the edits stored in the sidecar file, and then inserts Dublin Core metadata elements in the copy’s IPTC metadata. Most image processors leave Dublin Core elements alone so they make a nice home for hash hacks.

The following J verb modifies the title element of a sidecar XMP file. It inserts the original file name and the SHA256 hash of the associated image file. The title element is typically left intact by image editors. So, at the end of your edits, you retain the name of the original file and its stable unique hash.

    titbrandxmp=:3 : 0

    NB.*titbrandxmp v--  brand xmp  sidecar file  with file name  and
    NB. hash of associated image.
    NB.
    NB. monad:  clXmp =. titbrandxmp blImageXmpFiles
    NB.
    NB.   xmp=. 'c:/pictures/2022/Idaho/07_jul/d7500/_DSC8496.NEF.xmp'
    NB.   ps=. xmp ;~ (-#'.xmp') }. xmp
    NB.   titbrandxmp ps
    NB.
    NB.   ds=. sidecars 'c:/pictures/2022/North Rim/06_jun/d7500'
    NB.   xmps=. titbrandxmp&.> <"1 ds

    xmp=. read xmp [ 'raw xmp'=. y

    NB. single Dubin Core publisher and creator 
    NB. elements must exist to safely brand
    dcp=. '</dc:publisher>';'</dc:creator>'
    if. -.1 1 -: +/"1 dcp E.&> <xmp do. xmp return. end.

    NB. file name and sha256 brand
    tit=. dlf ('/[~(fhash)~]/',shabrand raw) changestr XMPTITLEFRAG-.CR

    NB. replace or insert title element
    'idx cxmp'=. (tags 'dc:title') cutnestidx xmp
    if. #idx do. ;(<tit) idx} cxmp
    else.
      (pt ,~ pt beforestr xmp),LF,tit,pt afterstr xmp [ pt=. ;0{dcp
    end.
    )

For details on how to use titbrandxmp refer to the J script brandxmp.ijs and the associated document brandxmp.pdf. Both of these files are available on GitHub. Enjoy!

Postscript: If you already have a recent version of J installed you can directly install this script as a J addon by typing the following commands in a JQt or JHS session.

NB. install addon files in ~addons/jacks
install 'github:bakerjd99/jackshacks'

NB. installed files
dir '~addons/jacks'

NB. load script
load '~addons/jacks/brandxmp.ijs'