Difficulty setting GPS tag to DMS data

[jhansonxi]

I can't correctly set GPS tags for latitude (0x0002) or longitude (0x0004). The man page doesn't have an example for this so I'm uncertain if this is a user error or bug. My expectation is that entering the data in the same format as the --list-tags output would suffice but it doesn't. Example:

In 1.jpg set:
0x0002 45, 1, 20.970

cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS \n \l

apt-cache madison libexif12
libexif12 | 0.6.24-1build2 | http://mirror.cogentco.com/pub/linux/ubuntu noble/main amd64 Packages

exif -v
0.6.22

exif --ifd=GPS -i -m "1.jpg"

0x0000 2.2.0.0
0x0001 N
0x0002 0, 0, 0.0000
0x0003 E
0x0004 0, 0, 0.0000
0x0005 Sea level
0x0006 0.000
0x0007 18:32:17.00
0x0012 WGS-84
0x001d 2026:02:08
ThumbnailSize 10391

exif --ifd=GPS -t 0x0002 --set-value="45, 1, 20.970" "1.jpg" -o "1.jpg.latdms_set"
Too few components specified (need 6, found 3)

Added some parameters to see what happens but the result was some odd "/0" values:

exif --ifd=GPS -t 0x0002 --set-value="45, 1, 20.970, 0, 0, 0" "1.jpg" -o "1.jpg.latdms_set"
Wrote file '1.jpg.latdms_set'.

exif --ifd=GPS -i -m "1.jpg.latdms_set"
0x0000 2.2.0.0
0x0001 N
0x0002 45, 20/0, 0/0
0x0003 E
0x0004 0, 0, 0.0000
0x0005 Sea level
0x0006 0.000
0x0007 18:32:17.00
0x0012 WGS-84
0x001d 2026:02:08
ThumbnailSize 10391

Rearrange the parameters and try again:

exif --ifd=GPS -t 0x0002 --set-value="45, 0, 1, 0, 20.970, 0" "1.jpg" -o "1.jpg.latdms_set"
Wrote file '1.jpg.latdms_set'.

exif --ifd=GPS -i -m "1.jpg.latdms_set"
0x0000 2.2.0.0
0x0001 N
0x0002 45/0, 1/0, 20/0
0x0003 E
0x0004 0, 0, 0.0000
0x0005 Sea level
0x0006 0.000
0x0007 18:32:17.00
0x0012 WGS-84
0x001d 2026:02:08
ThumbnailSize 10391

WUT?

[dfandrich]

This tag requires three rational numbers, so the parser expects three numerators and three denominators, a total of six numbers. Try something like this: exif --ifd=GPS -t GPSLatitude --set-value="45 1 1 1 2097 100" 1.jpg -o 1.jpg.latdms_set to set the values 45/1, 1/1 and 2097/100, a.k.a. 45° 1' 20.97"