PHP创建动态pdf

Question

Im trying to create a dynamic pdf using php,

I can load the pdf once the form is submitted but soon as I try to edit the pdf it fails to load

I shortened the code to keep it straight forward

PDF Structure

Your Name is : <<NAME>>

PHP Dynamic Script

set_time_limit(180); 

//Create Variable Names
$name = $_POST['name'];

function pdf_replace($pattern, $replacement, $string) {
    $len = strlen($pattern);
    $regexp = '';

    for($i = 0; $i <$len; $i++) {
        $regexp .= $pattern[$i];
        if($i < $len - 1) {
            $regexp .= "(\)\-{0,1}[0-9]*\(){0,1}";
        }
    }
    return ereg_replace ($regexp, $replacement, $string);
}

header('Content-Disposition: filename=cert.pdf');
header('Content-type: application/pdf');

//$date = date('F d, Y');

$filename = 'testform.pdf';
$fp = fopen($filename, 'r');
$output = fread($fp, filesize($filename));

fclose($fp);

//Replace the holders
$output = pdf_replace('<<NAME>>', $name, $output);


echo $output;

If I comment out the output it loads the form fine but soon as I try to run the function to replace the placeholder it fails to load. Anyone do something like this before?

Answer 1

I've tried your code and I can assume there are one of the following reasons that can cause the problem:

---

When you call pdf_replace() PHP returns Deprecated notice on ereg_replace() function. This breaks PDF structure and cause PDF fail to load. This function is deprecated since PHP 5.3.0. Simple solution is to start using preg_replace() instead.

function pdf_replace($pattern, $replacement, $string) {
    return preg_replace('/'.preg_quote($pattern,'/').'/', $replacement, $string);
}

In case you can't do it then the solution is to either edit php.ini file and edit error_reporting parameter. You can add "^ E_DEPRECATED" to your current config value to disable Deprecated notices. Other option is to add error_reporting() at the beginning of your script with appropriate value.

---

I do not see the PDF you use but some PDF generators encode PDF source. In this case it is a problem to find text there. For example I've tried "Print to PDF" feature on Mac and I was not able to find plain text in source there. So either fopen or ereg_replace can complain about wrong file format. In this case you should use some library that can work with PDF in more clever manner. I prefer FPDF but there are plenty of such libraries.