Expand the character types that the exif function can accept

[motohirooya]

Feature description

Currently, the exif function in the field calculator only works with paths separated by / and single-byte characters.
I would like it to work with paths separated by \ or with multi-byte characters.

exif('C:/Users/Public/exif/photo/IMG_0072.JPG')
->OK
exif('C:\Users\Public\exif\photo\IMG_0072.JPG')
->NG
exif('C:/Users/Public/exif/写真/IMG_0072.JPG')
->NG

-----------Change to bug---------------

What is the bug or the crash?*

exif and exif_geotag function doesn't accept non-ascii characters

Steps to reproduce the issue*

Create a directory with non-ascii characters and put your photo files in it.
Create a new vector layer, open the field calculator and enter the formula below.

exif('C:/Users/Public/exif/写真/IMG_0072.JPG')
Here, 'C:/Users/Public/exif/Photos/IMG_0072.JPG' is the path to the photo above.
An empty 'map' data structures is returned.

geom_to_wkt( exif_geotag('C:/Users/Public/exif/写真/IMG_0072.JPG') )
'Point EMPTY' is returned.

Versions*

QGIS version
3.42.0-Münster
QGIS code revision
feb8023

Libraries
Qt version
5.15.13
Python version
3.12.9
GDAL version
3.10.2
PROJ version
9.5.1 (Compiled)
9.6.0 (Running)
EPSG Registry database version
v12.004 (2025-03-02)
GEOS version
3.13.0-CAPI-1.19.0 (Compiled)
3.13.1-CAPI-1.19.2 (Running)
SQLite version
3.46.1
PDAL version
2.8.3
PostgreSQL client version
17.3
SpatiaLite version
5.1.0
QWT version
6.3.0
QScintilla2 version
2.14.1
OS version
Windows 10 Version 2009

Active Python plugins
db_manager
0.1.20
grassprovider
2.12.99
MetaSearch
0.3.6
processing
2.12.99

Supported QGIS version

Each month, there is a new release of QGIS. According to the release schedule, you should at least be running a supported QGIS version. You can check the release schedule https://www.qgis.org/en/site/getinvolved/development/roadmap.html#release-schedule
I'm running a supported QGIS version according to the roadmap.
->YES

New profile

Did you try with a new QGIS profile? Some issues or crashes might be related to plugins or user configuration. You must try with a new profile to check if the issue remains. Read this link how to create a new profile https://docs.qgis.org/latest/en/docs/user_manual/introduction/qgis_configuration.html#working-with-user-profiles
I tried with a new QGIS profile
->YES

[Alex-Kent]

separated by ''

Note on Github comment formatting:
Backslash is an escape character. To include it as a character you need to escape it by preceding it with another backslash:
'\\' (typed in comment) → '\' (displayed).

[motohirooya]

separated by ''

Note on Github comment formatting: Backslash is an escape character. To include it as a character you need to escape it by preceding it with another backslash: '\\' (typed in comment) → '' (displayed).

Yes, that's right. It was only a problem with multibyte characters.

[agiudiceandrea]

@motohirooya, it seems to me the fact that using non ASCII characters in the file path leads to no results it is a bug. This is probably a Windows only issue.

[motohirooya]

@agiudiceandrea I changed it to the content of the bug.
I also added the exif_geotag function because it returns an empty geometry if non-ascii characters are in the path.

[Alex-Kent]

Just a hunch: Modern Unix systems use UTF-8 character encoding whilst Windows uses UTF-16 (though they're trying to move to UTF-8). Mayhaps on Windows there's a missing encoding conversion before passing these paths to the OS?

[motohirooya]

I closed it by mistake.
I don't know what the technical problem is, but I recall having a similar issue in the past.
#56023