Project launch

[williamdes]

The idea

The idea is to fork the project TCPDF, rename it and start better maintenance and PHP version support.

The goal is to bring the project to a better code quality, and bring modern features. Also adding tests and covering all the code.

Where all this started: tecnickcom/TCPDF#222 (comment)

Work todo

• - Add tests
• - Move classes to namespaces to adhere to PSR4
• - Write some migration docs

Work done

• - LICENSE cleanup
• - Doc block comments on file heads cleaned up
• Merge General fixes and PHP 8 deprecation fixes tecnickcom/TCPDF#330 for PHP 8 fixes
• Build a coverage system
• Build a testing system
• Update the CHANGELOG format and add missing entries (3de62ce)
• - Be sure gitattributes is up to date (48f3a41)
• Make PHP 8 support work
• Cleanup phpdoc blocks (b68f92d and 8d18bed, 11269e4)
• Removed old classes (6dac2a1)
• Applied a coding standard

[mvorisek]

Did you try to connect with Nicola Asuni? The original project have the issues etc., I think better idea would be if he can add you as admin/maintainer of the original project.

If he is against, then you have my support 👍

/cc @tecnickcom @nicolaasuni

[williamdes]

Thank you for the support !

I could not get in touch with him, I was close to it by adding him on LinkedIn but nothing since then.

[NiklasBr]

It appears he has discovered this project. Nicola merged a couple of old PR:s just now and deleted a comment of mine on a PR telling people about this repository. I'm glad he found some time and merged them, but I do not feel confident he will continue to merge new PR:s judging by his long periods of absence and reluctance to even add merge permissions to anyone else.

[NiklasBr]

[mvorisek]

He merged basically everything, like tecnickcom/TCPDF@f0e42da, ie., at lest in my opinion, wrong fixes :(

[mvorisek]

Move classes to namespaces to adhere to PSR4

create another repo which will be drop in (composer) replacement of the original tcpdf using this namespaced fork

[williamdes]

The old tcpdf files are now longer autoloadable by composer.

I think composer people can just rename the class name in their files.

Non composer people can continue to use the old classes until they decide to migrate.
This is my actual point of view, what do you think about it ?

And also the support of original tcpdf should continue beyond v7 as it should be BC for projects that has one or more dependency on the original tcpdf which is quite common.

Do you mean for non composer users ?

[mvorisek]

I mean composer people.

Imagine this. Project A requiring mature tcpdf. Now I have project B requiring A.

Even if I use WarnockPDF in B, I still need full BC for A because of the dependency.

In two words: super important :)

[williamdes]

Can it co-exist with the PSR-4 autoloader ?

[mvorisek]

I belive it can, you can define as many autoloads in composer.json as you want.

[williamdes]

Okay, so I should add back the old autoloader.
Anyway I need to add some integration tests to make all changes like that secure :)

[williamdes]

⚠️ https://github.com/tecnickcom/TCPDF/releases/tag/6.4.0

With the upstream release of 6.4.0 what should we do?

Should we copy upstream my new changes?

[williamdes]

@nicolaasuni please let me know
I am open to share all the changes and fixes I made here

[williamdes]

Changes imported here as 1e73ece

[nicolaasuni]

Hi,
Thank you for keeping the TCDPF library alive.
I was hoping to complete the new library https://github.com/tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf in a short period of time but since then a lot happened.

The new library is more than 90% complete and most of the original TCPDF features are already available as modern external libraries that are almost 100% code tested and PHP8 compatible.

tc-lib-color
tc-lib-file
tc-lib-pdf-encrypt
tc-lib-pdf-filter
tc-lib-unicode-data
tc-lib-barcode
tc-lib-pdf-parser
tc-lib-unicode
tc-lib-pdf-page
tc-lib-pdf-graph
tc-lib-pdf-image
tc-lib-pdf-font

Most of these library can be already used in place of the legacy code in TCPDF.
For example the tc-lib-barcode library should be used in place of the barcode functions in TCPDF.

Keep maintaining the old TCPDF is quite risky as every PR as an high chance to break something for someone or introduce security issues.

From here I see two ways of advance the new project:

1. Focus exclusively on the new project to be completed soon.
2. Refactor the old TCPDF project to use the new libraries and progressively migrate to the new tc-lib-pdf.

Duplicating the project doesn't seems a good strategy to me as it will dilute even more the little help we can get.
Instead I encourage everyone to send their contributions to the original TCPDF project and possibly support the new tc-lib-pdf project.

[williamdes]

Thank you @nicolaasuni
I will open PRs upstream to copy my changes and fixes

I hope you will be able to finish your tc-lib-pdf work 💪🏻

Refactor the old TCPDF project to use the new libraries and progressively migrate to the new tc-lib-pdf.
Maybe this project can do that ?
Upstream it can be complex to do so unless you apply changes like I did yesterday to split composer and non composer PSR-4 files.

[mvorisek]

Duplicating the project doesn't seems a good strategy to me

I 100% agree, especiatially when this project does not have the same structure and merging changes from/to is very difficult.

Refactor the old TCPDF project to use the new libraries and progressively migrate to the new tc-lib-pdf.

I belive this is the way to go as tcpdf is used a lot, the interface of tcpdf can stay and the impl. can be step by step replaced with finished parts of tc-lib-pdf.

I can help with normalizing CS and phpstan, I am contributor and maintaner of more than 10 open source projects. @williamdes can add CI and help with maintaining the project in general. Please let us to know if you want to help, are you open to invite us on that project so we can integrate changes collaboratively?

[williamdes]

Hi @nicolaasuni
How can we help you ?
How can we make the tcpdf project maintenance work on the long term ?
Actually too much PRs are waiting for a review and I am afraid that without communication the previous situation of a critical bug occurs and makes me need to re-launch my fork. That would not benefit to the original project so I would like to avoid that.

[nicolaasuni]

The tcpdf project has too many issues to be fixed. It is not practical to continue maintaining this project.
Every PR here is too time consuming and there are no reliable tests.
Every change risk to break something for someone and there are millions of users.

For this reason a new tc-lib-pdf project (and related libraries) was born.
With the exclusion of some core functions, all supporting libraries are ready and they can also be used in the current TCPDF library. Hundreds of issues were fixed.
For example the barcode library in TCPDF should not be used or fixed as tc-lib-barcode is already way ahead and fully tested.

My preferred route is to get some help to complete the tc-lib-pdf and deprecate TCPDF ASAP.
There is no much work left and all the support libraries are complete with 100% code test coverage etc.

In the output.php file we are missing just 2 methods and a half to be ported from the old lib.
For the main file it is just a matter of porting the old methods one by one following the new style and quality standards.

If you are willing to help we can setup a video meeting and coordinate the efforts.

[williamdes]

I am willing to help but it depends on the amount of work, or maybe there is some possible funding behind ?

Will contributions only be merged by you ? Can we setup some team review system ?

My question is: can we get people to move to the new libraries ? Is it easy ?