Export & download html to pdf in codeigniter 3 using mPDF erro:Class 'Mpdf\Mpdf' not found

Question

I am trying to export and download the html view incidentView.php to pdf by pressing print button in incidentView.php, using mPDF.I am able to convert to pdf now even though the loading is very slow,but now I am getting error regarding the data that I am trying to get on pdf.Basically I can not convert the Dynamic data can you please help me how I should get them?

I have download mPDF by using:

composer require mpdf/mpdf

config.php

$config['composer_autoload'] = TRUE;

Incident.php Controller

function get_pdf_test($id)
  {
    $data['incidents'] = $this->incidents_model->getByIdPdf($id);
    $data['incidents_history'] = $this->incidents_model->getById_historyPdf($id); 
    $data['company_name'] = $this->incidents_model->getAllCompanyNamePdf();
    require_once (APPPATH. 'vendor/autoload.php');
    $path = '/tmp/mpdf'; 
     if (!file_exists($path)) {
    mkdir($path, 0777, true);
     }
     $mpdf = new \Mpdf\Mpdf(['tempDir' => $path]);
     $html = $this->load->view('admin/incidents/incidentsPdf',[],true);
     $mpdf->WriteHTML($html);
     $mpdf->Output(); 
     $mpdf->Output('incidentsPdf.pdf','D'); 

}

incidentPdf.php view

<div class="TaskView" > 
    <h2 class="heading" ><?php echo "ASGB_IN".str_pad($incidents->incidents_id, '4', '0', STR_PAD_LEFT);?></h2>
      <!-- <form action="<?php echo base_url('get_pdf_test/'.$incidents->id);?>" method="post" >       -->
    <div class="row">
           <div class="form-group col-md-4">
              <label for="email">Incidents ID</label>
              <input type="text" class="form-control" id="T_id" placeholder="Name" name="T_id" value="<?php echo "ASGB_IN".str_pad($incidents->incidents_id, '4', '0', STR_PAD_LEFT);?>" readonly>
            </div>
           <div class="form-group col-md-4">
              <label for="email">Incidents Name</label>
              <input type="text" class="form-control" id="Tname" placeholder="Name" name="Tname" value="<?php echo $incidents->incident_name;?>" readonly>
            </div>
            <div class="form-group col-md-4">
              <label for="pwd">Company Name</label>
              <input  type="text"class="form-control" id="Cname" name="Cname" value="<?php echo $incidents->company_name;?>"readonly>
            </div>
            <div class="form-group col-md-4">
              <label for="pwd">Project Name</label>
              <input type="text" class="form-control" id="Pname" name="Pname" value="<?php echo $incidents->project_name;?>" readonly>
            </div>

incident_model.php

 function getById_history_pdf($id)
{
    $query=$this->db->query("SELECT incidents_id FROM incidents WHERE id = $id");
    $get_row = $query->row();
    $incident_id = $get_row->incidents_id;
    
    $this->db->select('*');
    $this->db->where(array('incidents.incidents_id'=>$incident_id));
    $this->db->join('incident_status', 'incidents.id = incident_status.incident_id');
    return $this->db->get('incidents')->result_array(); 
} 


function getAllCompanyNamePdf()
{
  $query = $this->db->get('company_details');
  $query = $this->db->query('SELECT company_name FROM company_details where delete_flag =0');
  return $query->result_array();
}

function getByIdPdf($id) 
{
   return $this->db->get_where('incidents',array('id'=>$id))->row_array();
}

vendor location

pdf

Answer 1

You are using

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

inside your controller file. __DIR__ evaluates to the directory of the file that used it. Since this is a controller file, you are trying to load

/opt/lampp/htdocs/ticketing_tool_v2/application/controllers/admin/vendor/autoload.php

as __DIR__ evaluated to /opt/lampp/htdocs/ticketing_tool_v2/application/controllers/admin which is not the correct path.

A correct code would be

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

A better solution is to use APPPATH so you wouldn't have to know the relative path.

require_once APPPATH.'vendor/autoload.php';

You can also

$config['composer_autoload'] = true; 

You can find more info here.

Lastly, in the GitHb readme.md you can see this.

It is recommended to set one's own temporary directory via tempDir configuration variable. The directory must have write permissions (mode 775 is recommended) for users using mPDF (typically cli, webserver, fpm).

This means that you need a writable folder for temporary operations. You can initialize the temp location to any place you prefer using

$mpdf = new \Mpdf\Mpdf(['tempDir' => '/tmp']);

/tmp is always writable. However, you can make any folder and path the path for it as a parameter like

$path = '/tmp/mpdf'; // You should change this as prefered.
if (!file_exists($path)) {
    mkdir($path, 0777, true);
}
$mpdf = new \Mpdf\Mpdf(['tempDir' => $path]);

Answer 2

Make sure your composer/manual mpdf installation is located in the directory

application\vendor

set in your config\config.php

$config['composer_autoload'] = true; 

or use in your controller:

require_once (APPPATH. 'vendor/autoload.php');

Depending on the version of mpdf installed, you can use namespaces (V.7+) like:

$mpdf = new \Mpdf\Mpdf();

Other versions (V.6.x) use:

$mpdf = new mPDF();

so just change your function like this:

function DownloadPdf()
{
    //require_once (APPPATH. 'vendor/autoload.php'); //-> you don't need this line if set in config.php
    $mpdf = new mPDF();
    $mpdf->WriteHTML('<h1>Hello world!</h1>');
    $mpdf->Output();    
}

issue documented

Answer 3

Just run composer dump-autoload in order to update the auto-loader... then \Mpdf\Mpdf should become known. If that shouldn't work out, check & fix the file-systems permissions and try again (while vendor/autoload.php cannot be written, it obviously cannot add it into the auto-loader).

For XAMPP on Linux, ownership should likely be (there's no 777 required, nor recommended):

chown -R daemon:daemon /opt/lampp/htdocs

And by adding another user into group daemon, they'll share the group's permissions.

Answer 4

From the screenshot, the Issue doesn't seem to be the mPDF, it seems to be the data. Error 1: You have undefined incidents, this is causing the issue to create the PDF.

Error 2: You are passing an Object, however, mPDF requires you to pass an Array. You will need to convert the Model Return data using asArray or simply using return type of array for the model.

Reference: https://codeigniter4.github.io/userguide/models/model.html

Also, you don't need to explicitly define the autoload in your controller. Another thing to notice from the screenshot is it is creating the PDF, however, because the errors are throw, you can't see the PDF properly.

UPDATE: Potential Issue maybe that data is not passed to the View at all. Following code must be passing empty data

 $html = $this->load->view('admin/incidents/incidentsPdf',[],true);

Here [] is passing the empty data, so the View may not be receiving any data even though it is set in the controller.