Reading file attributes quickly

[kzlife76]

I'm using the .Net library to develop an application that can read the attributes of CR2 (Canon EOS Raw) files and move them to another directory based on their attributes. I have successfully got this working however, it is really slow.

when I call new MagickImageInfo(path), it takes a good 1-2 seconds to open the file. I assume that this is actually loading the entire file to memory. I looked at using MagickImageInfo, but it does not provide the property that I am looking for.

I want to get the Date Taken value out of the file. Is there a more efficient way of doing this?

Thanks!

[snibgo]

Perhaps exiftool does what you need.

[kzlife76]

I found a library that is better suited for what I'm looking for. I can process the metadata of each file in about 1 second.

http://nugetmusthaves.com/Package/MetadataExtractor

ImageMagick is still quiet a powerful tool. Unfortunately, it's not built to do what I want it to do and I don't want to shoe horn it. I will keep it in mind if I have any need for photo manipulation though.

[snibgo]

IM has a "ping" facility that generally reads metadata without reading pixels. But IM is fundamentally a raster image processor, not a metadata processor.