What are the potential risks of using outdated PHP code, such as PHP 4, for PDF text extraction?

Using outdated PHP code like PHP 4 for PDF text extraction can pose security risks due to vulnerabilities that may exist in the old version. Additionally, outdated code may not be compatible with newer PDF formats, leading to errors or incomplete extraction of text. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended to update to a newer version of PHP and use libraries specifically designed for PDF text extraction.

// Example of using a modern PHP library for PDF text extraction
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use Smalot\PdfParser\Parser;

$parser = new Parser();
$pdf = $parser->parseFile('sample.pdf');
$text = $pdf->getText();

echo $text;