Comments on: Convert a spool file to PDF using PHP on i5/OS

By: Enrico Zimuel

Enrico Zimuel — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 06:30:42 +0000

Hi David,
unfortunately the i5_spool can manage only strings, no images. If you need to convert complex spool file to PDF I suggest to use the CVT2PDF (http://www.code400.com/cvt2pdf.php) and call it with the i5 Toolkit from PHP.

By: David Porter

David Porter — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:06:20 +0000

Zimuel,

Thanks for the Spool Class and information on using the i5 Toolkit for strong i5/OS interactions.

I have a question: why does the i5_spool_get_data function only return a string, and being a string, why does it not return any of the formatting data associated with a print file such as boxes, simple lines or image overlays?

I would love to use the toolkit to convert spool data to PDF but I need all of the spool data, not just a long string of unformatted text.

Does that make sense?

By: Enrico Zimuel

Enrico Zimuel — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:38:44 +0000

Hi Alberto, i found that this was a bug of your ZF version. In the new version of ZF this issue has been solved with the management of AIX (i5/OS) environments.
In /Zend/Pdf/Resource/Font/Simple.php in the new ZF version there is this patch:

public function encodeString($string, $charEncoding)
{
if (PHP_OS == ‘AIX’) {
return $string; // returning here b/c AIX doesnt know what CP1252 is
}
return iconv($charEncoding, ‘CP1252//IGNORE’, $string);
}

I suggest you to upgrade your version of ZF with the last one.
Regarding the issue of the new PDF page in the i5Spool class I just fixed the problem. I updated the class in the post, thanks!

By: Alberto Ernestini

Alberto Ernestini — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:30:19 +0000

Almost solved!!
There was some problems on the Iseries side.
A Codepage font problem reported as ‘ Wrong Charset conversion from utf-8 to CP1252//IGNORE is not allowed’.

For this i had to modify the Font/Simple.php in this way :

/Zend/Pdf/Resource/Font/Simple.php

line 259, replace :

return iconv($charEncoding, ‘CP1252//IGNORE’, $string);

with

return $string;

and line 273, replace :

return iconv(’CP1252′, $charEncoding, $string);

with

return $string;

(taken from a Zend Forum post of Mon, 04 August 2008)

and also the other error was because of line 111 on i5spool.php under toPdf function

$page->setFont($conf_pdf['font'],$conf_pdf['font-size']);

changing it with this :
$page->setFont(Zend_Pdf_Font::fontWithName($conf_pdf['font']),(int)$conf_pdf['font-size']);
solved the font problem.

there is also a extra addition on the i5spool.php, at the new page i had to add this line after line 123
$page->setFont(Zend_Pdf_Font::fontWithName($conf_pdf['font']),(int)$conf_pdf['font-size']);
this for set the font also on the new page.
Now the code works well , except for the breakpage but i think i can fix it
Thanks a lot!
Ciao
Alberto

By: Enrico Zimuel

Enrico Zimuel — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:22:30 +0000

Hi Alberto, did you tried to install the last ZF version? I guess this problem comes out using an old version of ZF. I tried the example in the post using ZF 1.9.6 on i5/OS and i didn’t found your error.

By: Alberto Ernestini

Alberto Ernestini — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:55:34 +0000

Hi , thanks for your prompt answer!
This is the error :
Catchable fatal error: Argument 1 passed to Zend_Pdf_Page::setFont() must be an instance of Zend_Pdf_Resource_Font, string given, called in /usr/local/Zend/5250/demos/emulation/i5Spool.php on line 111 and defined in /usr/local/Zend/ZendFramework/library/Zend/Pdf/Page.php on line 586

and this is what i am having on my Iseries 515 :
1ZCORE5 *BASE 5001 Zend Core for IBM i5/OS (2.6.1)
1ZCORE5 1 5002 Zend Platform for IBM i5/OS (3.6.1 )

The Zend FW version is 1.6.0.

Thanks!
Ciao.
Alberto.

By: Enrico Zimuel

Enrico Zimuel — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:23:35 +0000

Hi Alberto,
What’s the error message that you got? Which version of ZF are you using?
In the i5Spool class you can use the function getList($user[,$num]) to get all the data of the user’s spool files (the $num is an optional parameter to get only the first $num spool file).

By: Alberto Ernestini

Alberto Ernestini — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:21:07 +0000

Your article sound very interesting. As a Iseries specialist from too many years i’ve tried to set it up on a test system, but i may need better PHP experience
By example the i5spool asks also for a ‘JOBNR’ parameter and i wasn’t able to set the correct font. i still get a error.

There is anything missing?
Thanks a lot.
Ciao.
Alberto.