I'm trying to set up a simple PDF form that passes FDF data to the server to create an FDF file. I have been unable to do this, so I thought I would try just passing the data and printing it out to make sure the data was there. When I tried this, nothing was returned. Here is the simple code I was using:

<?php
print_r($HTTP_FDF_DATA);
?>

I have tried this on another machine and everything is working fine, i.e. the FDF data is printed. Is this an issue with the FDF toolkit, or a PHP setting, or something else entirely? The machine with the problem is running mandrake 8.2 I think. The other machine has redhat 9.

Thanks in advance

I'm having the same problem. On mine, the actual fdftk functions are working fine, but the $HTTP_FDF_DATA aren't being set for some reason. Registered globals are On. Now, before I loaded fdftk, i upgraded php from the original mandrake's php and installed it to another directory...not the default directory. I made sure that I uninstalled the initial php before upgrading php. Also, similarly to elgolferisto, i loaded everything on another machine with the fdftk, and it worked fine. If anyone knows what the deal is or why HTTP_FDF_DATA isn't being set, I would like to hear your input.

I have found a couple ways around this.

1. Use $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA instead. Your php.ini must have the entry "always_populate_raw_post_data=on". Then you will be able to use $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA in a similar manner as $HTTP_FDF_DATA.

2. Use php's php://input method. This is probably the preferred way of doing it since its faster and doesn't require the $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA to get filled. A couple ways to use this is:
a. $fp = fopen("php://input",...) - to be used like a file
b. $string = file_get_contents("php://input") - puts the entire post stream as one string.

Not unless you really enjoy compiling FDFToolkit with PHP, you could change the type of Adobe submitted output from fdf to xfdf. The only small advantage of using fdf, is that they are a little smaller in size, but not much. PHP has an xml parser which can parse the stream from php://input. If you go about using the xfdf method, then you will not have to worry about compiling FDFToolkit with PHP.