Nelius,
This post belongs on the [EMAIL PROTECTED] list rather than the Mac OS-X Perl list. I've cross posted it there and would suggest that you subscribe to that list for all your PDF::API2 help. It's an active and helpful list.
You need to be calling the methods on objects and not on their class. Once you open the PDF, you need to add the page to it rather than just adding a page to ... a class.
The following code (from my head so it could be wrong) demonstrates how you'd do it:
my $pdf = PDF::API2->open( $path_to_pdf ); # Open a PDF my $page = $pdf->page( $pdf->pages ); # Add a page at the end $page->do_something() # Do stuff to the page
If there's any PDF::API2ers reading this, feel free to correct my code.
Cheers! Rick
On 15 Jun 2004, at 7:08 AM, Nelius Bresnan wrote:
I'm a Perl novice using the PDF::API package to add stuff to the end of a
PDF file. I've RTFMed, I've googled this and I even tried emailing the
author but I'm totally stuck.
I want to use the method PDF::API2::PDF::Page->add($str). At first I tried
PDF::API2->page($index). This inserts-and-returns a new page at $index and
it works fine. However an attempt to use $page->add($str) gets the error
message:
Can't locate object method "add" via package "PDF::API2::Page"
So it seems that the scalar returned by PDF::API2->page is not the same kind
of object that PDF::API2::PDF::Page->add is supposed to be called on. This
surprised me - I expected both 'page' objects to be the same type. But I
checked and there is a file /Library/Perl/5.8.1/PDF/API2/Page.pm and also a
file /Library/Perl/5.8.1/PDF/API2/pdf/Page.pm so it would appear there are
in fact two different kind of page objects. And AFAICT I need the other one.
So I tried to create a scalar of type PDF::API2::PDF::Page using its
constructor. But to create that I need an object of type
PDF::API2::PDF::Pages to base it on. The constructor for Pages is
PDF::API2::PDF::Pages->new($pdfs,$parent). But the explanation
(http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/htdocs/PDF-API2/PDF/API2/PDF/Pages.html) of the
parameters needed for $pdfs and $parent aren't explicit enough for a Perl
novice like myself. It says that $parent should point at the file context if
we're trying to create a root node. And I think thats what I need to do to
add pages onto the end of the PDF file.
I know enough Perl to know that contexts are very important in Perl. So I
looked it up in three different manuals but none of them make any reference
to a file context. So I'm assuming that context isn't being using in the
canonical sense here and that the author simply means a file pointer of some
kind.
So I've supplied the $pdf scalar that was returned from
PDF::API2->open('aPDFfile.pdf'). The pod says that "$pdfs is the file object
(or objects) in which to create the new Pages object." I'm not sure
precisely what it means by that but I think its that this is the file that
it'll output to. I want it to output to the same file so I've provided the
same $pdf value again. So my attempted construction of a 'pages' object
looks like this:
my $pages = PDF::API2::PDF::Pages->new($pdf, $pdf);
when I run it it craps out giving the message:
Can't locate object method "new_obj" via package "PDF::API2" at
/Library/Perl/5.8.1/PDF/API2/PDF/Pages.pm line 68.
I had a look at the line in question and its pretty hairy stuff. I think its
doing something about creating a file outputstream or something like that.
It's expecting that there will be a pointer to an object in $_ and I think
its the wrong kind of object and consequently it can't find the method. But
I'm (way) out of my depth. I think my problem is that my providing the wrong
parameters to PDF::API2::PDF::Pages->new. But I just can't understand what I
should be giving it. The POD comments are too vague for me. I don't get what
I should be providing to it.
thank you.
Nelius Bresnan.
Senior Developer PrintSupply - Print Procurement & Supply Management 18 Greenaway Street VIC 3105 Tel: (03) 9850 3255 Fx: (03) 9850 3277 http://www.printsupply.com.au/
