info

Inspect an image without decoding it.

Report format, dimensions, size and metadata facts for one or more images.

info <inputs...> # inspect(); no decode, no codec load

info runs inspect() on the raw bytes — magic-byte sniffing and header parsing only. It never decodes a pixel and never loads a codec, so it’s cheap even on a HEIC file the tool can’t compress without libheif.

Flags

info takes no command-specific flags. It also rejects three of the global flags that every other command accepts, rather than silently ignoring them:

Flag	Why it’s rejected
`--out <dir>`	`info` writes no output file at all — there is nowhere for `--out` to point.
`--in-place`	same reason: nothing is ever written, in place or otherwise.
`--dry-run`	`info`’s entire output is a dry run in spirit (nothing is written either way) — accepting the flag and doing nothing differently would make it look honored while doing nothing.

This is a deliberate design choice, not an oversight: a usage mistake exits 2 with a sentence explaining why, the same standard every other flag in this tool holds to, rather than a flag that looks like it does something and silently doesn’t.

Fields reported

Field	Notes
`format`	`jpeg`, `png`, `webp`, `avif`, or `heic` — `info` is the only command that can report `heic`, since it’s the one command that never has to produce an output format.
`width`, `height`	pixel dimensions as decoded, before EXIF orientation is applied.
`bytes`	size of the original file.
`orientation`	EXIF orientation tag (1–8), when present.
`hasAlpha`, `isAnimated`	when known.
`hasExif`, `hasGps`, `hasIptc`, `hasXmp`	metadata-presence facts — what `strip` would remove.

Any field inspect() didn’t determine is omitted, never printed as a fabricated false or undefined — both the human table and --json output follow this rule.

Examples

imagekbreducer info photo.jpg

photo.jpg
  format       jpeg
  dimensions   800x600
  size         239.4 KB
  orientation  6
  exif         true
  gps          false

imagekbreducer info *.jpg --json | jq '.results[] | {input, hasGps}'

What can go wrong

Exit	When
2	`--out`, `--in-place`, or `--dry-run` passed
3	an input doesn’t exist, or a glob matched nothing
20	`unsupported-format` — not a jpeg/png/webp/avif/heic source
21	`decode-failed` — a truncated, corrupt, or empty (0-byte) file
22	`input-too-large` — checked against `stat().size` before the file is even read
23	`dimension-exceeded` — header dimensions exceed the configured pixel ceiling

info never produces exit 4 (nothing is ever written) or 10–13 (there’s no search — see Exit codes).