tcpdf module on Silverstripe Framework - tcpdf

Question

I am trying to use the tcpdf module on silverstripe but it doesn't seem to generate the pdf file.
Below is the class that has the method that should be generating the pdf. The $url_handler part is commented because am not sure how to re-route the request from link $PDFLink to this class.
Any kind of help will be greatly appreciated.
class RaaOrders Extends ReportsModule {
public static $allowed_actions = array (
'pdf'
);
public static $url_handlers = array (
// 'get_pdf' => 'pdf'
);
public function pdf(){
// create new PDF document
$pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false);
// set document information
$pdf->SetCreator(PDF_CREATOR);
$pdf->SetAuthor('Nicola Asuni');
$pdf->SetTitle('TCPDF Example 001');
$pdf->SetSubject('TCPDF Tutorial');
$pdf->SetKeywords('TCPDF, PDF, example, test, guide');
// set default header data
$pdf->SetHeaderData(PDF_HEADER_LOGO, PDF_HEADER_LOGO_WIDTH, PDF_HEADER_TITLE.' 001', PDF_HEADER_STRING, array(0,64,255), array(0,64,128));
$pdf->setFooterData(array(0,64,0), array(0,64,128));
// set header and footer fonts
$pdf->setHeaderFont(Array(PDF_FONT_NAME_MAIN, '', PDF_FONT_SIZE_MAIN));
$pdf->setFooterFont(Array(PDF_FONT_NAME_DATA, '', PDF_FONT_SIZE_DATA));
// set default monospaced font
$pdf->SetDefaultMonospacedFont(PDF_FONT_MONOSPACED);
// set margins
$pdf->SetMargins(PDF_MARGIN_LEFT, PDF_MARGIN_TOP, PDF_MARGIN_RIGHT);
$pdf->SetHeaderMargin(PDF_MARGIN_HEADER);
$pdf->SetFooterMargin(PDF_MARGIN_FOOTER);
// set auto page breaks
$pdf->SetAutoPageBreak(TRUE, PDF_MARGIN_BOTTOM);
// set image scale factor
$pdf->setImageScale(PDF_IMAGE_SCALE_RATIO);
// set some language-dependent strings (optional)
if (#file_exists(dirname(__FILE__).'/lang/eng.php')) {
require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/lang/eng.php');
$pdf->setLanguageArray($l);
}
// ---------------------------------------------------------
// set default font subsetting mode
$pdf->setFontSubsetting(true);
// Set font
// dejavusans is a UTF-8 Unicode font, if you only need to
// print standard ASCII chars, you can use core fonts like
// helvetica or times to reduce file size.
$pdf->SetFont('dejavusans', '', 14, '', true);
// Add a page
// This method has several options, check the source code documentation for more information.
$pdf->AddPage();
// set text shadow effect
$pdf->setTextShadow(array('enabled'=>true, 'depth_w'=>0.2, 'depth_h'=>0.2, 'color'=>array(196,196,196), 'opacity'=>1, 'blend_mode'=>'Normal'));
// Print a text
$html = '<span style="background-color:yellow;color:blue;"> PAGE 1 </span>
<p stroke="0.2" fill="true" strokecolor="yellow" color="blue" style="font-family:helvetica;font-weight:bold;font-size:26pt;">You can set a full page background.</p>';
$pdf->writeHTML($html, true, false, true, false, '');
// Close and output PDF document
// This method has several options, check the source code documentation for more information.
$pdf->Output('example_001.pdf', 'I');
}
}

Answer 1

I found out that the issue was exactly what I thought it was. Dependencies were not well taken care of because I was doing a manual install.
So I used composer and everything works fine. And you can actually use SS templating to populate the pdf with data, by returning your Objects to the template as shown below.
$pdf = new TCPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$vd = new ViewableData();
$str = $vd->customise(ArrayData::create(array('MyVariable'=>'MyValue')))->renderWith('MyTemplateName');
$pdf->writeHTMLCell(0, 0, '', '', $str, 0, 1, 0, true, '', true);
$strContent = $pdf->Output(BASE_PATH.'/tmp/tmp.pdf', 'S');

Answer 2

Call exit when you're done. That's probably the easiest way.
As with most frameworks the output is done elsewhere, after your logic is implemented. Since you are not returning anything, it may give an empty response, or set an error code, etc. Likely interfering with what the pdf library is trying to do. You can avoid that by prematurely exiting (after the pdf library has output a valid response directly to the browser).