Re: Merging PDFs

Jon

I think the answer is going to be "bite the bullet" then. I understand
your concerns coming from an ISV standpoint. But remember you're also
asking for functional code to implement in yours for basically nothing.

Merging PDFs isn't "that simple". I stand by that. :) Although I am
waiting for the C code that was promised to see if there's something about
the PDF spec I'm missing. It's not just slapping two files together.
Object references, etc... they can get messy.

As a side, our PDF "concater" requires min V5R2 and Java 1.4 (it uses an
old version of iText). Those are both VERY old and if someone is on older
OS versions than that, well, there are other issues. But I do understand
the issue with if they already have a package installed (for example, if
they had our SPLTOOL and put your software one there would be 2 copies of
the .jars and commands). And working with class paths stinks.

Good luck in your venture, though. I've been there too a few times with
many projects.. I think I spent a couple months or so a few years back just
going over the PDF spec when I was doing all my PDF stuff for our
software. And that was a very rudimentary version of PDF files (basically
just plain text).

Brad
www.bvstools.com

On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 12:21 PM, Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

OK - one last try and then I’ll just give up.

I know _how_ to do it.

I’m trying to avoid the potential support issues in a wide variety of
environments over which I have no control. Adding additional complexity and
fragility for no other purpose than merging two PDFs just seems to me to be
a poor return on investment. If we needed _any_ other capability than merge
it would probably be worth the effort - but we don’t.

It may be we’ll end up having to bite the bullet - but I want to at least
try and avoid it.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

On Dec 9, 2014, at 1:10 PM, Henrik Rützou <hr@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jon

I think that you have misunderstand JAVA a little - I have my own apache

POI

version running under powerEXT and sets it with class path

// Add classpath
qcmd('ADDENVVAR ENVVAR(CLASSPATH) VALUE(''.'
+':/powerEXT/core/poi/poi-3.6/poi-3.6-20091214.jar'
+':/powerEXT/core/poi/poi-3.6/poi-contrib-3.6-20091214.jar'
+':/powerEXT/core/poi/poi-3.6/poi-examples-3.6-20091214.jar'
+':/powerEXT/core/poi/poi-3.6/poi-ooxml-3.6-20091214.jar'
+':/powerEXT/core/poi/poi-3.6/poi-ooxml-schemas-3.6-20091214.jar'
+':/powerEXT/core/poi/poi-3.6/poi-scratchpad-3.6-20091214.jar'
+':/powerEXT/core/poi/poi-3.6/dom4j-1.6.1.jar'
+':/powerEXT/core/poi/poi-3.6/jsr173_1.0_api.jar'
+':/powerEXT/core/poi/poi-3.6/xbean.jar'
+':/powerEXT/core/poi/xlparse.jar'
+''') REPLACE(*YES)');

It doesn't interfer with other versions of POI on the box

On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 7:01 PM, Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

How to run any Java is not an issue. We know how to do that.

We are trying to avoid the issues that inevitably arise when you have to
worry about installing a Java app on multiple systems at a wide variety

of

release levels - some of which may already have a version of the

app

in question on the box. Etc. etc. We already have to install a bunch of
RPG and C code - adding the PDF capability to that would not impact

install

- but adding Java will and we’d rather avoid it.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

On Dec 9, 2014, at 4:03 AM, D*B <dieter.bender@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

... PDFBox and PDFSam are Java open source and they have very easy to

use commandline utilities, you could use without writing any java (or
embedded Java in RPG). If you use the command RUNJAVARUN (it's part of

Open

Source CommandGate, the little sister of ArdGate) you would have no
classpath issues and the merge of 2 PDFs will be very fast (subsecond)

and

scalable. From the native Perspective you would simply use the Command
RUNJAVARUN.

D*B
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Regards,
Henrik Rützou

http://powerEXT.com <http://powerext.com/>
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