https://github.com/vaites/php-apache-tika
Apache Tika bindings for PHP: extract text and metadata from documents, images and other formats
https://github.com/vaites/php-apache-tika
apache ocr php-library text-extraction text-recognition tika
Last synced: 13 days ago
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Apache Tika bindings for PHP: extract text and metadata from documents, images and other formats
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/vaites/php-apache-tika
- Owner: vaites
- License: mit
- Created: 2015-08-30T06:38:09.000Z (over 10 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2025-10-04T07:41:51.000Z (4 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-12-08T10:45:35.958Z (2 months ago)
- Topics: apache, ocr, php-library, text-extraction, text-recognition, tika
- Language: PHP
- Homepage:
- Size: 13.9 MB
- Stars: 117
- Watchers: 4
- Forks: 24
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- Changelog: CHANGELOG.md
- License: LICENSE
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# PHP Apache Tika
This tool provides [Apache Tika](https://tika.apache.org) bindings for PHP, allowing to extract text and metadata
from documents, images and other formats.
The following modes are supported:
* **App mode**: run app JAR via command line interface
* **Server mode**: make HTTP requests to [JSR 311 network server](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/TIKA/TikaServer)
Server mode is recommended because is 5 times faster, but some shared hosts don't allow run processes in background.
Although the library contains a list of supported versions, any version of Apache Tika should be compatible as long as
backward compatibility is maintained by Tika team. Therefore, it is not necessary to wait for an update of the library
to work with the new versions of the tool.
## Features
* Simple class interface to Apache Tika features:
* Text and HTML extraction
* Metadata extraction
* OCR recognition
* Standarized metadata for documents
* Support for local and remote resources
* No heavyweight library dependencies
* Compatible with Apache Tika 1.15 or greater
* Tested up to 1.28.5, 2.9.4 and 3.2.2
* Works on Linux, macOS, Windows and probably on FreeBSD
## Requirements
* PHP 7.3 or greater
* [Multibyte String support](http://php.net/manual/en/book.mbstring.php)
* [cURL extension](http://php.net/manual/en/book.curl.php)
* Apache Tika 1.15 or greater
* Oracle Java or OpenJDK
* Java 8 for Tika 1.19 or greater
* Java 7 for Tika from 1.15 to 1.18
* [Tesseract](https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract) (optional for OCR recognition)
**NOTE**: the supported PHP version will remain synced with [the latest supported by PHP team](https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php)
## Installation
Install using Composer:
```bash
composer require vaites/php-apache-tika
```
If you want to use OCR you must install [Tesseract](https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract):
* **Fedora/CentOS**: `sudo yum install tesseract` (use dnf instead of yum on Fedora 22 or greater)
* **Debian/Ubuntu**: `sudo apt-get install tesseract-ocr`
* **macOS**: `brew install tesseract` (using [Homebrew](http://brew.sh))
* **Windows**: `scoop install tesseract` (using [Scoop](http://scoop.sh))
The library assumes `tesseract` binary is in path, so you can compile it yourself or install using any other method.
## Usage
Start Apache Tika server with [caution](http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/08/13/5):
```bash
java -jar tika-server-x.xx.jar
```
If you are using JRE instead of JDK, you must run if you have Java 9 or greater:
```bash
java --add-modules java.se.ee -jar tika-server-x.xx.jar
```
Instantiate the class, checking if JAR exists or server is running:
```php
$client = \Vaites\ApacheTika\Client::make('localhost', 9998); // server mode (default)
$client = \Vaites\ApacheTika\Client::make('/path/to/tika-app.jar'); // app mode
```
If you want to use dependency injection, serialize the class or just delay the check:
```php
$client = \Vaites\ApacheTika\Client::prepare('localhost', 9998);
$client = \Vaites\ApacheTika\Client::prepare('/path/to/tika-app.jar');
```
You can use an URL too:
```php
$client = \Vaites\ApacheTika\Client::make('http://localhost:9998');
$client = \Vaites\ApacheTika\Client::prepare('http://localhost:9998');
```
Use the class to extract text from documents:
```php
$language = $client->getLanguage('/path/to/your/document');
$metadata = $client->getMetadata('/path/to/your/document');
$html = $client->getHTML('/path/to/your/document');
$text = $client->getText('/path/to/your/document');
```
Or use to extract text from images:
```php
$client = \Vaites\ApacheTika\Client::make($host, $port);
$metadata = $client->getMetadata('/path/to/your/image');
$text = $client->getText('/path/to/your/image');
```
You can use an URL instead of a file path and the library will download the file and pass it to Apache Tika. There's
**no need** to add `-enableUnsecureFeatures -enableFileUrl` to command line when starting the server, as described
[here](https://wiki.apache.org/tika/TikaJAXRS#Specifying_a_URL_Instead_of_Putting_Bytes).
If you use Apache Tika >= 2.0.0, you *can* [define an HttpFetcher](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/TIKA/tika-pipes)
and use the option `-enableUnsecureFeatures -enableFileUrl` when starting the server to make the server download remote
files when passing a URL instead of a filename. In order to do so, you must set the name of the HttpFetcher using
`$client->setFetcherName('yourFetcherName')`.
### Methods
Here are the full list of available methods
#### Common
Tika file related methods:
```php
$client->getMetadata($file);
$client->getRecursiveMetadata($file, 'text');
$client->getLanguage($file);
$client->getMIME($file);
$client->getHTML($file);
$client->getXHTML($file); // only CLI mode
$client->getText($file);
$client->getMainText($file);
```
Other Tika related methods:
```php
$client->getSupportedMIMETypes();
$client->getIsMIMETypeSupported('application/pdf');
$client->getAvailableDetectors();
$client->getAvailableParsers();
$client->getVersion();
```
Encoding methods:
```php
$client->getEncoding();
$client->setEncoding('UTF-8');
```
Supported versions related methods:
```php
$client->getSupportedVersions();
$client->isVersionSupported($version);
```
Set/get a callback for sequential read of response:
```php
$client->setCallback($callback);
$client->getCallback();
```
Set/get the chunk size for secuential read:
```php
$client->setChunkSize($size);
$client->getChunkSize();
```
Enable/disable the internal remote file downloader:
```php
$client->setDownloadRemote(true);
$client->getDownloadRemote();
```
Set the [fetcher name](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/TIKA/tika-pipes):
```php
$client->setFetcherName($fetcher); // one of FileSystemFetcher, HttpFetcher, S3Fetcher, GCSFetcher, or SolrFetcher
$client->getFetcherName();
```
#### Command line client
Set/get JAR/Java paths (only CLI mode):
```php
$client->setPath($path);
$client->getPath();
$client->setJava($java);
$client->getJava();
$client->setJavaArgs('-JXmx4g');
$client->getJavaArgs();
$client->setEnvVars(['LANG' => 'es_ES.UTF-8']);
$client->getEnvVars();
```
#### Web client
Set/get host properties
```php
$client->setHost($host);
$client->getHost();
$client->setPort($port);
$client->getPort();
$client->setUrl($url);
$client->getUrl();
$client->setRetries($retries);
$client->getRetries();
```
Set/get [cURL client options](http://php.net/manual/en/function.curl-setopt.php)
```php
$client->setOptions($options);
$client->getOptions();
$client->setOption($option, $value);
$client->getOption($option);
```
Set/get timeout:
```php
$client->setTimeout($seconds);
$client->getTimeout();
```
Set/get HTTP headers (see [TikaServer](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/TIKA/TikaServer)):
```php
$client->setHeader('Foo', 'bar');
$client->getHeader('Foo');
$client->setHeaders(['Foo' => 'bar', 'Bar' => 'baz']);
$client->getHeaders();
```
Set/get OCR languages (see [TikaOCR](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/tika/tikaocr)):
```php
$client->setOCRLanguage($language);
$client->setOCRLanguages($languages);
$client->getOCRLanguages();
```
Set HTTP fetcher name (for Tika >= 2.0.0 only, see https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/TIKA/tika-pipes)
```php
$client->setFetcherName($fetcherName)
```
### Breaking changes
Since 1.0 version there are some breaking changes:
* Apache Tika versions prior to 1.15 are not supported (use [0.x](https://github.com/vaites/php-apache-tika/tree/0.x) version for 1.14 and older)
* PHP minimum requirement is 7.3 or greater (use [0.x](https://github.com/vaites/php-apache-tika/tree/0.x) version for 7.1 and older)
* `$client->getRecursiveMetadata()` returns an array as expected
* `Client::getSupportedVersions()` and `Client::isVersionSupported()` methods cannot be called statically
* Values returned by `Client::getAvailableDetectors()` and `Client::getAvailableParsers()` are identical and have a new definition
See [CHANGELOG.md](CHANGELOG.md) for more details.
## Troubleshooting
### Empty responses or unexpected results
This library is only a _proxy_ so if you get an empy responses or unexpected results the most common cause is Tika
itself. A simple test is using the GUI to check the response:
1. Run the Tika app without arguments: `java -jar tika-app-x.xx.jar`
2. Drop your file or select it using _File -> Open_
3. Wait until the metadata appears
4. Get the text or HTML using _View_ menu
If the results are the same, you must take a look into [Tika's Jira](https://issues.apache.org/jira/projects/TIKA/issues)
and open an issue if necessary.
### Encoding
By default the returned text is encoded with UTF-8, andthe `Client::setEncoding()` method allows to set the expected
encoding.
## Tests
Tests are designed to **cover all features for all supported versions** of Apache Tika in app mode and server mode.
There are a few samples to test against:
* **sample1**: document metadata and text extraction
* **sample2**: image metadata
* **sample3**: text recognition
* **sample4**: unsupported media
* **sample5**: huge text for callbacks
* **sample6**: remote calls
* **sample7**: text encoding
* **sample8**: recursive metadatata
## Known issues
There are some issues found during tests, not related with this library:
* Apache Tika 1.17 and lower can't extract text from OCR as described in [TIKA-2509](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/TIKA-2509)
* Tesseract slows down document parsing as described in [TIKA-2359](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/TIKA-2359)
## Integrations
- [Symfony2 Bundle](https://github.com/welcoMattic/ApacheTikaBundle)