Failed to read PDF: unexpected end of fileThis error means the PDF ended before the parser expected, or the file contains structural violations. It commonly occurs after truncated downloads, partial disk writes, or when third-party tools produce non-spec-compliant output. PDFluent provides a repair mode and detection utilities to handle corrupt files gracefully.
If a PDF is downloaded over an unreliable connection and the transfer is interrupted, the file on disk is incomplete. The PDF header may be valid but the cross-reference table and trailer section at the end of the file are missing, causing the parser to fail.
If the process writing a PDF is killed mid-way (OOM kill, power loss, server restart), the resulting file on disk is truncated. PDF structure requires a complete %%EOF trailer — without it, strict parsers reject the file entirely.
Some PDF generators produce technically invalid output: duplicate object IDs, malformed cross-reference tables, incorrect stream lengths, or invalid encoding. These files open in forgiving readers like Adobe Acrobat but fail in strict parsers that enforce the spec.
PDFluent's open_with_repair() attempts to reconstruct the cross-reference table by scanning the file byte-by-byte. This recovers most truncated or structurally broken PDFs without requiring the %%EOF trailer.
use pdfluent::Document;
// Attempt repair before giving up
let doc = Document::open_with_repair("damaged.pdf")?;
let page_count = doc.page_count();
println!("Recovered {} pages", page_count);If you process PDFs uploaded by users or received from external systems, validate them before passing to downstream processing. This avoids cascade failures and gives you a clean error to return to the caller.
use pdfluent::Document;
fn process_pdf(path: &str) -> anyhow::Result<()> {
// Check file integrity first
match Document::validate(path) {
Ok(report) if report.is_valid() => {
let doc = Document::open(path)?;
// safe to process
}
Ok(report) => {
eprintln!("PDF has warnings: {:?}", report.warnings());
// decide whether to attempt repair or reject
}
Err(e) => {
eprintln!("PDF is unreadable: {}", e);
return Err(e.into());
}
}
Ok(())
}A common production pattern is to attempt a normal open first, and fall back to repair mode only on failure. This keeps the fast path clean while handling corrupted files gracefully.
use pdfluent::Document;
fn open_robust(path: &str) -> anyhow::Result<Document> {
match Document::open(path) {
Ok(doc) => Ok(doc),
Err(_) => {
eprintln!("Normal open failed, attempting repair...");
Document::open_with_repair(path)
.map_err(|e| anyhow::anyhow!("Repair also failed: {}", e))
}
}
}