On Windows $pdf->getDataFields() fails because the command adds double-quotes around "A" handle when php runs in PowerShell

[olignyf]

Reproduces only running in PowerShell or Visual Studio Code (which uses PowerShell for its Terminal). Under cmd it is fine.

When it executes

$pdf->getDataFields();

Underneath the command ran is

pdftk "A"="C:/Users/Domino/AppData/Local/Temp/t21F908.tmp.pdf" dump_data_utf8 

Which fails with

Error: Unable to find file.
Error: Failed to open PDF file:
   A
Error: Unable to find file.
Error: Failed to open PDF file:
   =C:/Users/Domino/AppData/Local/Temp/t21F908.tmp.pdf
Done.  Input errors, so no output created.

But if I manually remove the double quotes around the "A" like this it would works:

pdftk A="C:/Users/Domino/AppData/Local/Temp/t21F908.tmp.pdf" dump_data_utf8   
InfoBegin
InfoKey: Creator
InfoValue: Designer 6.3
InfoBegin
(...)

Note that I'm running php inside Visual Studio Code which uses PowerShell. If I would use cmd it would work.

[mikehaertl]

This was probably caused by this fix in the underlying php-shellcommand:
mikehaertl/php-shellcommand#44

TBH I'm not sure how to fix it and I'm also not using windows. Suggestions?

[jjdunn]

I'm using cmd and have never encountered this problem. Is it required to use PowerShell ?

alternately, there's an option in Command escapeArgs which defaults to true. if this value is set to false then the "A" is not double-quoted. This would seem to solve the problem.

edit: I just stepped through the code on my system. the double-quotes around the "A" are added in Command::addArg() line 309 : $argKey = $doEscape ? escapeshellarg($argKey) : $argKey;

[mikehaertl]

alternately, there's an option in Command escapeArgs which defaults to true. if this value is set to false then the "A" is not double-quoted. This would seem to solve the problem.

Yeah, that's an option. But you may run into problems if your filenames contain spaces (or other potentially critical chars). If you can ensure that this is not the case it should be safe to use 'escapeArgs' => false.

[olignyf]

Thanks for the quick replies. After retrying to reproduce the issue to try a fix I cannot reproduce the issue anymore. It was another error in my application and when I inspected the command line generated internally to see what was wrong and tried it manually I had the error in PowerShell but not in cmd, and assumed the same was occurring in the php runtime. But my error was reusing twice the same Pdf object (can only be used once).

Sorry for the trouble!