Forum OpenACS Development: exec bash command pdftk within TCL page

So the entire command line you are passing is interpreted as the command name.

Each argument to the command line has to be a seperate argument to exec.

Try

eval {exec $files}

The code is very simple and straight forward

ad_form -extend -name files -on_submit {
ns_log Notice "ONSUBMIT "

set files [list]
for { set i 0 } { $i < $count } { incr i} {

set tmpfile [set file_${i}]

set filename "/tmp/pdf_$i.pdf"
file copy [lindex $tmpfile 1] $filename

lappend files $filename
}

set output_file "[ns_tmpnam].pdf"

ns_log Notice "INPUT: $files"
ns_log Notice "OUTPUT: $output_file"

eval { exec pdftk ${files} cat output $output_file}

ns_returnfile 200 application/pdf $output_file
}

and the error is still

[16/Aug/2011:13:04:06][976.3003374448][-default:10-] Notice: ONSUBMIT
[16/Aug/2011:13:04:06][976.3003374448][-default:10-] Notice: INPUT: /tmp/pdf_0.pdf /tmp/pdf_1.pdf
[16/Aug/2011:13:04:06][976.3003374448][-default:10-] Notice: OUTPUT: /tmp/filexx9qHV.pdf
[16/Aug/2011:13:04:07][976.3003374448][-default:10-] Warning: blank-compat: /var/www/mda/www/pdfmerge.adp uses deprecated property title instead of doc(title).
[16/Aug/2011:13:04:07][976.3003374448][-default:10-] Warning: blank-compat: /var/www/mda/www/pdfmerge.adp uses deprecated property header_stuff instead of head.
[16/Aug/2011:13:04:07][976.3003374448][-default:10-] Error: POST http://10.0.105.227:8000/pdfmerge?
referred by "http://10.0.105.227:8000/pdfmerge";
/tmp/pdf_0.pdf /tmp/pdf_1.pdf not found as file or resource.
Error: Failed to open PDF file:
/tmp/pdf_0.pdf /tmp/pdf_1.pdf
Errors encountered. No output created.
Done. Input errors, so no output created.
while executing
"exec pdftk ${files} cat output $output_file"
("eval" body line 1)
invoked from within
"eval { exec pdftk ${files} cat output $output_file}"
("uplevel" body line 20)
invoked from within
"uplevel #$level $on_submit"
("1" arm line 1)
invoked from within
"switch $errno {
0 {
# TCL_OK
}
1 {
# TCL_E..."
(procedure "ad_form" line 629)

Victor, my TCL version is

% info patchlevel
8.4.19
%

/tmp/pdf_0.pdf /tmp/pdf_1.pdf not found as file or resource.
Error: Failed to open PDF file:

That is unrelated to exec.

Either its a permissions issue or the files don't exist.

If the list contains just one file the script works fine.
The issue now is:

1) why does it happen?
2) How to pass two or more files to the command line using a TCL variable?

Cheers,

/tmp/pdf_0.pdf /tmp/pdf_1.pdf not found as file or resource

means

"/tmp/pdf_0.pdf /tmp/pdf_1.pdf" not found as file or resource

http://mark.aufflick.com/blog/2005/11/10/six-stages-of-debugging

Nice read!!

The command
eval [list exec pdftk ${files} cat output $output_file]

didn't work either.
As soon as i figure that out I post here.
Thanks for the feedback!!!

Thanks Dave, Thanks Victor

Iuri

I did almost exactly the same thing a while back using ImageMagick. Here's my code if it's any use to you.

ad_proc -public pdf::concat_files {
    {-input_file_list:required}
    {-output_file:required}
}  {

   Makes an operating system call to ImageMagick to concatenate a list of PDF documents.
   ImageMagick is a good choice here as it runs on both Windows and Unix.
   For a Unix-only implementation, I would have used PDFJam/PDFjoin or PDFsam.
    

    @author Brian Fenton Oct 2009

    @param input_file_list - a list of input files (full path names)
    @param output_file -  full path name of the output file 

    @return 1 if all ok, 0 if we have a problem

} {

  #Initialise 
  set return_val 1  

  #if only 1 input file passed in then skip the concatenation
  if { [llength $input_file_list] > 1 } {

    #get location of ImageMagick executable
    set convert_path [parameter::get_from_package_key -package_key acs-workflow -parameter imagemagick_convert_path]

    if {$convert_path ne ""} {
      #set exec_call " $convert_path "
      set exec_call [list $convert_path ]
      foreach infile $input_file_list {
        #check input file is good - exists, permissions etc
        if {![file exists $infile]} {
          set return_val 0
          ns_log Error "pdf::concat_files had an error reading file: $infile not found"
          break
        }

        if {![file readable $infile]} {
          set return_val 0
          ns_log Error "pdf::concat_files had an error reading file: $infile permission denied"
          break
        }

        lappend exec_call "$infile"
      } ;# end foreach

      if {$return_val} {
        #make the call and catch any errors     
        #the ImageMagick generated PDFs are huge, so let's try some compression
        set caught [catch {eval exec -keepnewline $exec_call "-compress Zip" {$output_file}} result]
        if { $caught } {
          set return_val 0
          ns_log Error "pdf::concat_files had an error calling $exec_call. The error was $result"
        } else {
          #check did the concatenated file get created
          if {![file exists $output_file]} {
            set return_val 0
            ns_log Error "pdf::concat_files failed to create $output_file"
          }
        }
      }
    } else {
      set return_val 0
      ns_log Error "pdf::concat_files had an error: ImageMagick not found at $convert_path."
    }
  } else {
    #only 1 input file was passed in, so just do a file copy 
    file copy -force [lindex $input_file_list 0] $output_file
  }
                         
  return $return_val
  
}