tecnickcom / tc-lib-pdf-parser

3.15.2 2026-09-05 07:37 UTC

Requires

• php: ^8.2
• ext-pcre: *
• tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf-filter: ^2.11

Requires (Dev)

• carthage-software/mago: 1.47.6
• pdepend/pdepend: ^2.16
• phpunit/phpunit: ^11.5 || ^12.5 || ^13.3

LGPL-3.0-or-later

• Nicola Asuni

• parser
• pdf
• document
• tc-lib-pdf-parser

Published on Packagist.org on 2026-09-05 07:37 UTC

README

Parser library for reading and extracting PDF document structures.

💖 Part of the tc-lib-pdf / TCPDF ecosystem (100M+ installs). Sponsor its maintenance →

Overview

tc-lib-pdf-parser parses raw PDF data into the cross-reference and trailer data of the document and an array of its objects, each decoded into a token array.

Namespace	\Com\Tecnick\Pdf\Parser
Author	Nicola Asuni [e-mail]
License	GNU LGPL v3 - see LICENSE
API docs	https://tcpdf.org/docs/srcdoc/tc-lib-pdf-parser
Packagist	https://packagist.org/packages/tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf-parser

Features

Parsing

• Cross-reference tables and cross-reference streams, including /Prev chains and incremental updates
• Object streams (/ObjStm)
• Indirect references, resolved on demand and bounded against cycles
• Stream decoding through tc-lib-pdf-filter, including the Predictor of DecodeParms

Limits

• Maximum decoded size of a single stream
• Maximum nesting depth of arrays and dictionaries
• Maximum depth of indirect object resolutions
• Maximum number of chained cross-reference sections

Requirements

• PHP 8.2 or later
• Extension: pcre
• Composer

Configuration

The constructor accepts an array of parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Meaning
ignore_filter_errors	bool	false	If true, a stream that fails to decode is kept as raw data instead of raising an exception
decode_streams	bool	true	If true, decode the stream payloads of the indirect objects while parsing
max_stream_size	int	33554432	Maximum size in bytes of a single decoded stream; 0 means unlimited

Installation

composer require tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf-parser

Quick Start

<?php

require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$raw = file_get_contents('/path/to/document.pdf');
$parser = new \Com\Tecnick\Pdf\Parser\Parser(['ignore_filter_errors' => true]);

// $xref holds the cross-reference and trailer data,
// $objects the parsed objects keyed as "[object number]_[generation number]"
[$xref, $objects] = $parser->parse((string) $raw);

Development

make deps
make help
make qa

Packaging

make rpm
make deb

For system packages, bootstrap with:

require_once '/usr/share/php/Com/Tecnick/Pdf/Parser/autoload.php';

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please review CONTRIBUTING.md, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, and SECURITY.md.