PHP - Read dynamically generated (and echoed) HTML into a string?

Question

I have a file that pulls some information from the database and creates some relatively simple dynamic HTML.

The file can then be used by DOMPDF to turn it into a PDF document. DOMDPF uses GET variables to achieve the basic implementation.

ob_start();
include_once("report.php?id=1249642977");

require_once("dompdf/dompdf_config.inc.php");

$dompdf = new DOMPDF();
$dompdf->load_html(ob_get_contents());
$dompdf->render();
$dompdf->stream("sample.pdf", array('Attachment'=>'0'));

ob_end_clean();

I thought I might be able to use something ilke that to achieve the aim but unsurprisingly it didn't work.

So how can I read the HTML that gets output to the browser if you were to load the file directly, into a string for use with the DOMPDF class?

Answer 1

Two problems.

First, you can't call a PHP page like that using include_once - the query string will be ignored. You have to give the id to report.php some other way.

Second, you're correctly buffering the output. However, you're passing the current output buffer to DOMPDF, telling it to generate a PDF to the output buffer, and the discarding the output buffer. You probably want something like:

$dompdf = new DOMPDF();
$dompdf->load_html(ob_get_clean());
$dompdf->render();
$dompdf->stream("sample.pdf", array('Attachment'=>'0'));

That'll get the current output buffer, discard it, and disable output buffering. The $dompdf->stream should then work.