Python, Perl & PDF files

[rbt]

Cameron Laird wrote:
> In article <d4j91s$bfp$1 at solaris.cc.vt.edu>,
> rbt  <rbt at athop1.ath.vt.edu> wrote:
> 			.
> 			.
> 			.
> 
>>OK, I'm done seeking to provoke. So, it's official. Perl has *much*, 
>>*much* better support for dealing with PDF files than does Python. 
> 
> 			.
> 			.
> 			.
> No, it's not; maybe Perl even has *worse* support.  At the very least,
> there's more redundancy in what Perl offers.
> 
> I understand that <URL: http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/search?query=pdf&mode=dist >
> looks rather convincing; in fact, a couple of years ago, we argued <URL:
> http://www.unixreview.com/documents/s=7822/ur0304g/ > that indeed Perl was
> ahead.  I'm not sure that's true now.  
> 
> Rather than wander into all the details, let's start over:  what kinds of
> things do you think you want to do with PDFs?  You might be surprised to
> find that, despite all that CPAN *seems* to offer, your needs aren't met
> at all.  Or maybe they are.  It depends.  Let's get specific.

Read and search them for strings. If I could do that on windows, linux 
and mac with the *same* bit of Python code, I'd be very happy ;)