Apache PDFBox - Get Info

🔧 Operation Name

Apache PDFBox - Get Info extractInfo

🧾 Description

Extracts metadata and structural details from a PDF document. This includes properties like author, title, number of pages, creation/modification dates, and file size.

✅ Inputs

Parameter

Type

Required

Description

PDF File [Binary]

InputStream (Binary)

✅

The PDF document for which to extract information.

📤 Output

Attributes: PdfBoxFileAttributes A custom object containing metadata and structural details:
Field
Type
Description
numberOfPages
int
Total number of pages in the PDF
pdfSize
long
Size in bytes
title
String
Document title
author
String
Author metadata
subject
String
Subject metadata
keywords
String
Keywords metadata
creator
String
Tool or system used to create the PDF
producer
String
PDF producer metadata
creationDate
String
Date created (ISO-8601)
modificationDate
String
Date modified (ISO-8601)

🧪 MuleSoft Flow Example

Here’s how to call this operation in a MuleSoft flow:

<mule
	xmlns="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core"
	xmlns:doc="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/documentation"
	xmlns:pdfbox="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/pdfbox"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core 
	http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core/current/mule.xsd  
	http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/pdfbox 
	http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/pdfbox/current/mule-pdfbox.xsd">

	<flow name="main">
		<scheduler doc:name="Scheduler" doc:id="dsgkfy" >
			<scheduling-strategy>
				<fixed-frequency timeUnit="HOURS"/>
			</scheduling-strategy>
		</scheduler>
		<flow-ref name="Apache PDFBox - Get Info" />
	</flow>
	
	<sub-flow name="Apache PDFBox - Get Info">
		<set-payload doc:id="vxsfk3" doc:name="Set payload" mimeType="application/octet-stream" value='#[%dw 2.0
output application/java
---readUrl("https://www.adobe.com/support/products/enterprise/knowledgecenter/media/c4611_sample_explain.pdf", "application/octet-stream") as Binary]'></set-payload>
		<pdfbox:get-pdf-info doc:name="Apache PDFBox - Get Info" doc:id="etasls" />
		<logger doc:name="Logger" doc:id="ecdqs3" message='#[%dw 2.0
output text
---
"\n\n Apache PDFBox - Get Info" 
++ "\n\n⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄⌄"
++ "\n\nGet Info Attributes: " ++ (write(attributes, "application/json")) as String
++ "\n\n^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"
++ "\n\n Apache PDFBox - Get Info" 
++ "\n\n"]'/>
	</sub-flow>

</mule>

🔍 Notes

The operation does not modify the PDF—only reads metadata.
Ideal for auditing, indexing, or validating PDFs before further processing.

Underlying Application Interface:

Pseudo Code

 Operation: getPdfInfo

Input:
  pdfFile: Binary content of the PDF (InputStream)
  streamingHelper: MuleSoft StreamingHelper (for context/utilities)

Output:
  Result containing:
    - Original PDF content (InputStream) as output
    - PDF file attributes (PdfBoxFileAttributes) as attributes

Errors:
  PDF_LOAD_FAILED: If the PDF document cannot be loaded (corrupt or invalid).
  PDF_METADATA_EXTRACTION_FAILED: If metadata cannot be retrieved from the loaded document.

Steps:
1. Convert the input `pdfFile` InputStream to a byte array.
2. Get the size of the byte array (pdfSize).
3. Try to load the PDF document from the byte array using PDFBox Loader.
4. If loading fails, throw a ModuleException with PDF_LOAD_FAILED.
5. Try to extract metadata from the loaded PDF document:
   a. Get the PDDocumentInformation object from the loaded document.
   b. If PDDocumentInformation is null, throw a ModuleException with PDF_METADATA_EXTRACTION_FAILED.
   c. Create a new PdfBoxFileAttributes object.
   d. Set the number of pages from the loaded document.
   e. Set the pdfSize.
   f. Get and set other metadata fields (Title, Author, Subject, Keywords) from PDDocumentInformation.
   g. Get and format CreationDate and ModificationDate, then set them in attributes.
6. Log relevant information (pages, size, title, author).
7. Create a Result object containing:
   a. A new InputStream created from the original byte array (to return the original content).
   b. Set the media type to APPLICATION_OCTET_STREAM.
   c. The extracted PdfBoxFileAttributes object as attributes.
8. Return the Result object.
9. Ensure the loaded PDF document is closed properly after processing (using try-with-resources or a finally block).

Methods used from the Apache PDFBox library

org.apache.pdfbox.Loader.loadPDF(byte[] input): Used to load the PDF document.
org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDDocument.getNumberOfPages(): Used to get the total number of pages.
org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDDocument.getDocumentInformation(): Used to get the document's metadata.
org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDDocumentInformation (methods like getTitle(), getAuthor(), getSubject(), getKeywords(), getCreationDate(), getModificationDate()): Used to retrieve specific metadata fields.
org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDDocument.close(): Used to close the loaded document.

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Last updated 15 days ago

Operation: getPdfInfo Input: pdfFile: Binary content of the PDF (InputStream) streamingHelper: MuleSoft StreamingHelper (for context/utilities) Output: Result containing: - Original PDF content (InputStream) as output - PDF file attributes (PdfBoxFileAttributes) as attributes Errors: PDF_LOAD_FAILED: If the PDF document cannot be loaded (corrupt or invalid). PDF_METADATA_EXTRACTION_FAILED: If metadata cannot be retrieved from the loaded document. Steps: 1. Convert the input `pdfFile` InputStream to a byte array. 2. Get the size of the byte array (pdfSize). 3. Try to load the PDF document from the byte array using PDFBox Loader. 4. If loading fails, throw a ModuleException with PDF_LOAD_FAILED. 5. Try to extract metadata from the loaded PDF document: a. Get the PDDocumentInformation object from the loaded document. b. If PDDocumentInformation is null, throw a ModuleException with PDF_METADATA_EXTRACTION_FAILED. c. Create a new PdfBoxFileAttributes object. d. Set the number of pages from the loaded document. e. Set the pdfSize. f. Get and set other metadata fields (Title, Author, Subject, Keywords) from PDDocumentInformation. g. Get and format CreationDate and ModificationDate, then set them in attributes. 6. Log relevant information (pages, size, title, author). 7. Create a Result object containing: a. A new InputStream created from the original byte array (to return the original content). b. Set the media type to APPLICATION_OCTET_STREAM. c. The extracted PdfBoxFileAttributes object as attributes. 8. Return the Result object. 9. Ensure the loaded PDF document is closed properly after processing (using try-with-resources or a finally block).