How to manage a shell script command in Applescript while a directory name contains spaces?

Question

I am trying to incorporate an exiftool command into an Applescript routine that performs complex image manipulations. The following routine is aimed at modifying the creation dates and modification dates of the image files moved to a directory after manipulation.

I would like to use the classic exiftool command:

exiftool "-filemodifydate<datetimeoriginal" "-filecreatedate<datetimeoriginal" DIR

However the directory is named by the script with the command :

set pTargetFoldername to "Edited-pictures" & space & date string of (current date) & space & time of (current date) as string.

And therefore the directory name contains spaces.

My routine AdjustDates does not work. The resulting command does not compensate for the spaces and cannot be used in a "do shell script cmd" call The command created (with the dates in the local french language) is :

"/usr/local/bin/exiftool -filemodifydate<datetimeoriginal -filecreatedate<datetimeoriginal '/Users/yves/Desktop/Edited-Pictures mercredi 31 juillet 2024 70545'"

I do not seem to see a solution which should seem trivial.

on AdjustDates(pTargetFolderPath)
    tell application "Finder"
        set ThePath to (POSIX path of pTargetFolderPath)
    end tell
        set exiftool_path to "/usr/local/bin/exiftool"
        set exiftool_args to "-filemodifydate<datetimeoriginal" & space & "-filecreatedate<datetimeoriginal"
        set cmd to exiftool_path & space & exiftool_args & space & (quoted form of ThePath)
        return cmd --for test only
        --do shell script cmd -- not functional due to the spaces in the directory path
end AdjustDates

Answer 1

I have changed the command to :

set exiftool_args to quote & "-filemodifydate" & "<" & "datetimeoriginal" & quote & space & quote & "-filecreatedate" & "<" & "datetimeoriginal" & quote
    set cmd to exiftool_path & space & exiftool_args & space & (quoted form of ThePath)

This change did the work, in addition to eliminating the spaces from the target directory names by using a routine I found somewhere:

set pTargetFoldername to my ReplaceText(pTargetFoldername, " ", "-")

on ReplaceText(t, s, r)
    set tids to AppleScript's text item delimiters
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to s
    try
        set temp_list to text items of t
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to r
        set new_text to temp_list as string
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tids
    on error err_msg
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tids
        error err_msg
    end try
    return new_text
end ReplaceText