PHP MySQL: Saving PDF to Database

Question

I am generating PDFs with TCPDF, I want to save the generated pdf as blob in a MySQL db. What data should I save to the db? Code for PDF page

<?php
require_once('../config/lang/eng.php');
require_once('../tcpdf.php');

// 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);

// 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
$pdf->setLanguageArray($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 some content to print
$html = <<<EOD
<h1>Welcome to <a href="http://www.tcpdf.org" style="text-decoration:none;color:black;"><span style="background-color:#CC0000;"> TC<span style="color:white;">PDF</span> </span></a>!</h1>
<i>This is the first example of TCPDF library.</i>
<p>This text is printed using the <i>writeHTMLCell()</i> method but you can also use: <i>Multicell(), writeHTML(), Write(), Cell() and Text()</i>.</p>
<p>Please check the source code documentation and other examples for further information.</p>
<p style="color:#CC0000;">TO IMPROVE AND EXPAND TCPDF I NEED YOUR SUPPORT, PLEASE <a href="http://sourceforge.net/donate/index.php?group_id=128076">MAKE A DONATION!</a></p>
EOD;

// Print text using writeHTMLCell()
$pdf->writeHTMLCell($w=0, $h=0, $x='', $y='', $html, $border=0, $ln=1, $fill=0, $reseth=true, $align='', $autopadding=true);

// ---------------------------------------------------------

// Close and output PDF document
// This method has several options, check the source code documentation for more information.
$pdf->Output('example_001.pdf', 'I');

//============================================================+
// END OF FILE
//============================================================+
?>

The code outputs a pdf files to the browser. How do I save the pdf data to a db or otherwise to the file system? For text data I have used file_put_contents to create html/txt files.

Solved thanks to Piskvor. Solution Code

$content=$pdf->Output('', 'S');
header("Content-type:application/pdf");
header("Content-Disposition:attachment;filename='pdf.pdf'");
echo $content;

You can save the $content as a blob in your db and retrieve it to generate the pdf. If you want the pdf to open in the browser, remove the following line.

header("Content-Disposition:attachment;filename='pdf.pdf'");

Solution 1

The answer is right there, in your code:

// Close and output PDF document
// **This method has several options**, check the source code documentation for more information.
$pdf->Output('example_001.pdf', 'I');

From the documentation:

Parameters: (...) string $dest Destination where to send the document. It can take one of the following values: (...) S: return the document as a string. name is ignored.

So, change your code thus:

$pdffilecontent = $pdf->Output('', 'S');

and save that string to the database

Solution 2

Output($name='example_001.pdf', $dest='I')

the values of the $dest string (Destination where to send the document) can be:

I: send the file inline to the browser (default). 
D: send to the browser and force a file download with the name given by name.
F: save to a local server file with the name given by name.
S: return the document as a string (name is ignored).
FI: equivalent to F + I option
FD: equivalent to F + D option
E: return the document as base64 mime multi-part email attachment (RFC 2045)

hope that helps!