Perl Requires Chilkat v11.7.0+

Search for Text in a PDF

See more PDF Text Extraction Examples

Demonstrates the "search" operation, which finds every occurrence of a string in a PDF and returns each match with its page number and the text around it. Matching ignores case unless caseSensitive is true. Chilkat2 Perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

# This example requires the Chilkat API to have been previously unlocked.
# See Global Unlock Sample for sample code.

# The three-page PDF used in this example is available at search_context.pdf

my $pdf = Chilkat2::Pdf->new;
my $success = $pdf->LoadFile('qa_data/pdf/search_context.pdf');
if (!$success) {
    print $pdf->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

my $json = Chilkat2::JsonObject->new;
my $jsonOut = Chilkat2::JsonObject->new;

# The string to find.
$json->UpdateString('query', 'chilkat');

# The number of characters returned before and after each match.  The default is 40.
$json->UpdateInt('context', 30);

$success = $pdf->ExtractText('search', $json, $jsonOut);
if (!$success) {
    print $pdf->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

# "count" is the number of matches.  Each match has the page, the matched text as it appears
# in the PDF, and the text before and after it.
print 'Matches: ', $jsonOut->IntOf('count'), "\n";

my $i = 0;
my $count_i = $jsonOut->SizeOfArray('matches');
while ($i < $count_i) {
    $jsonOut->I($i);
    print 'page ', $jsonOut->IntOf('matches[i].page'), ': ...', $jsonOut->StringOf('matches[i].before'), '[', $jsonOut->StringOf('matches[i].text'), ']', $jsonOut->StringOf('matches[i].after'), "...\n";
    $i = $i + 1;
}

# The search ignores case by default.  Set caseSensitive to find only the exact spelling.
$json->UpdateBool('caseSensitive', 1);
$json->UpdateString('query', 'Chilkat');
$success = $pdf->ExtractText('search', $json, $jsonOut);
if (!$success) {
    print $pdf->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

print 'Case-sensitive matches for Chilkat: ', $jsonOut->IntOf('count'), "\n";

# Sample output:

# Matches: 5
# page 1: ...[Chilkat] River Field Notes The Chilkat...
# page 1: ...Chilkat River Field Notes The [Chilkat] River runs for about fifty mi...
# page 2: ...DAY ONE: UPPER [CHILKAT] FLATS Clear and cold, minus e...
# page 2: ...he river is sometimes spelled [chilkat] in older records, and the val...
# page 3: ...y because the fish run on the [Chilkat] was thinning. Two tagged bird...
# Case-sensitive matches for Chilkat: 3