run File_PDF on php 8 (upgrade to Horde_Pdf)

I use the pear extension File_PDF in an old PHP app I maintain.

It seems like the last version by that module is version 0.3.3 from and it is not maintained anymore and has been superseded by the package Horde_Pdf from pear.horde.org.

Can I just change the codebase to the new package? Or do I need to change the function calls?

I started a repository where I convert the old code to the new code at https://github.com/rubo77/File_PDF

The old PDF.php was renamed to Writer.php and the fonts are now in another folder. and the class File_PDF was renamed to class Horde_Pdf_Writer.

I replaced the code in my scripts:

and changed

    require_once('vendors/pear/File_PDF/PDF.php');
    $this->pdf = &File_PDF::factory();

    require_once('vendors/pear/Horde_Pdf_Writer/Writer.php');
    $this->pdf = new Horde_Pdf_Writer();

now I get the error

Uncaught Error: Class 'Horde_String' not found in /var/www/app/vendors/pear/Horde_Pdf_Writer/Writer.php

Solution

A better solution would be to use a more actively maintained PDF generation library like TCPDF, which doesn't need much changes either, e.g. from file_PDF to TCPDF just:

replace newLine() with Ln()
replace getOutput() with Output()
SetFont('Arial', ... doesn't work, so just use SetFont('', ...

If you really need this old Library you need to also download those packages:

Horde_Exception
Horde_Util
Horde_Translation

To let it run in a local folder, edit some files:

instead of calling File_PDF with

require_once('vendors/pear/File_PDF/PDF.php');
$this->pdf = &File_PDF::factory();

now call

require_once('vendors/pear/Horde/Pdf/Writer.php');
require_once('vendors/pear/Horde/Pdf/Exception.php');
require_once('vendors/pear/Horde/String.php');
$this->pdf = new Horde_Pdf_Writer();

in Writer.php the function _getFontFile() needs these extra lines:

$fontname = Horde_String::ucfirst(Horde_String::lower($fontkey));
        require_once('vendors/pear/Horde/Pdf/Font/'.$fontname.'.php');
$fontClass = 'Horde_Pdf_Font_' . $fontname;

in Exception.php you need to call

require_once('vendors/pear/Horde/Exception/Wrapped.php');

in Wrapped.php you need

require_once('vendors/pear/Horde/Exception.php');