Hi
This is all on XP. I am using CLI php to loop through a folder converting all .ppts to pdfs.
I use pdfcreator.exe for this. the relevant php line is:

$convertproc = proc_open('"C:\Program Files\PDFCreator\PDFCreator.exe" /NoStart /PF'.$file, $descriptorspec, $retval);

(I've also used exec() in earlier efforts).
I then get the process id using

proc_get_status($convertproc);

and pause until the process is finished, then close the process:

while($procstatus['running']==1 )
{
$procstatus = proc_get_status($convertproc);
}
proc_close($convertproc);

Then I try to rename the file:

$output = exec('ren '.$newfile .' '. $finalname, $output, $returnval);

However, the new pdf file seems to get written to *after* the process has finished running, so the rename fails. I've tried filesize(), is_readable(file) and all sorts of others but to no avail.

Any advice?

You can of course just stick ';ren '.$newfile .' '. $finalname, $output, $returnval' onto the end of you PDFCreator command. And use exec().

I don't think so. I had it as a shell script before and I hit the same problem: the ren command was being executed before the file had been created by PDFCreator, or when PDFCreator was still being written to, so it was failing.

Originally Posted by geekpie

I don't think so. I had it as a shell script before and I hit the same problem: the ren command was being executed before the file had been created by PDFCreator, or when PDFCreator was still being written to, so it was failing.

Damm. Well it certainly would have worked bash.
Can't you just rename if before.
Maybe two loops:
1. rename all files
2. then pdfcreate-whatever all files.
or the other way round if pdfcreate requires the filename in a particular way.

wait did you set $procstatus before the while loop? ie:

$procstatus = proc_get_status($convertproc);
while($procstatus['running']==1 )
{
   $procstatus = proc_get_status($convertproc);
}

or just:

do {
    $procstatus = proc_get_status($convertproc);
 } while($procstatus['running']==1 )

Thanks for all the help.

I think I've solved it.

I couldn't rename the files before: the combination of the files being converted being ppt 2003, me having Office 2007 and PDFCreator seemed to insist on putting [Compatibility Mode] in the filename whatever I tried. I had PDFCreator on autosave with <title> as the output filename, but still always, [Compatibility Mode].

I did it using 2 delay loops: first one insisted new file existed before moving on

while (!file_exists($temp_filename)){
...

So all filenames at least existed by the time it got to the renaming part of the program. However the new file could still be being written to by PdfCreator, so a 2nd loop:

while ($returnval != 0)
{
exec('ren '.$file .' '. $finalname, $output, $returnval);
}
made sure the file got renamed.

Thanksagain.