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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-26T12:43:24+00:00

i was wondering if this setup would work. i have to crank out a

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i was wondering if this setup would work. i have to crank out a batch of PDF from a bunch of variables i’m pushing into the $_SESSION via a form (duh…). the idea is to pass the template file to the dompdf engine and have the template populate from the $_SESSION then out to PDF. it seems to me that when the $template gets loaded it should do that, yes?

here’s the basic code:

<?php
function renderToPDF($theTemplate = "template.php") // this is just to show the value
{
  require_once("dompdf/dompdf_config.inc.php");

  $content = file_get_contents($theTemplate); 

  if ($content !== false)
  {
    $dompdf = new DOMPDF();
    $dompdf->load_html($content);
    $dompdf->render();
    $dompdf->stream("kapow_ItWorks.pdf");
  }
}
?>

and this is the template.php file (basically… you don’t want all 16 pages…)

<html>
<meta>
<head>
  <link href="thisPage.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
</head>
  <body>
    <h1><?php echo $_SESSION['someTitle'] ?></h1>
    <h2>wouldn't it be nice, <?php echo $_SESSION['someName'] ?></h2>
  </body>
</html>

so my thinking is that the template.php will pull the variables right out of the $_SESSION array without any intervention, looking like this:

BIG TITLE

wouldn’t it be nice, HandsomeLulu?

i guess the nut of the question is: Do $_SESSION variables get evaluated when PHP files are loaded, but not rendered?

WR!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    for some reason, the code ON the page that calls the function ALSO gets dumped into the file. this was placed before the header. i understand now why: i wasn’t referencing an external page, i was importing and external page. don’t know why that didn’t click.

    anyway. as soon as i got rid of the page’s extra stuff, it worked just fine. in retrospect, what dompdf needed to state was quite simply that NO HTML of ANY kind (echo, print, &c.) can be on the page that calls the function. at least that what it appears to require at this level of my knowledge.

    for those who, like me, are floundering in a misma of ‘everything but the answer’, here’s the bare bones code that did the job:

    buildPDF.php:

    <?php
session_start();
$_SESSION['someTitle'] = "BIG FAT TITLE";
$_SESSION['someName'] = "HandomeLu";

$theTemplate = 'template.php';

function renderToPDF($templateFile)
{
  require_once("_dox/dompdf/dompdf_config.inc.php");
  ob_start();
  include $templateFile;
  $contents = ob_get_clean(); 

  if ($contents !== false)
  {
    $dompdf = new DOMPDF();
    $dompdf->load_html($contents);
    $dompdf->render();
    $dompdf->stream("kapow_ItWorks.pdf");
 }
}

renderToPDF($theTemplate);
?>

    and this is the template.php:

        <!DOCTYPE HTML>
    <html>
    <meta>
    <head>
      <meta charset="utf-8">
      <link href="thisPage.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
    </head>
    <body>
      <h1><?php echo $_SESSION['someTitle'] ?></h1>
      <p>wouldn't it be nice, <?php echo $_SESSION['someName'] ?></p>
    </body>
   </html>

    also note that the external CSS file reads in just fine. so you can still keep the structure and style separate. also, the $_SESSION variables can be set anywhere, obviously, i just set them here to keep testing easy.

    hope this is useful for those getting started with this GREAT class. if you’re looking to get up and running cranking out PDF files, this kicks so much butt, it should have a trigger and a grip on it. 🙂

    thanks to everyone who commented. you got me in the place i needed to be. 🙂

    this site ROCKS.

    WR!

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