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Using PDFtk Server, I want to rotate a PDF file 90˚ and save it in-place, to overwrite the input file. I tried the following, but it fails, probably because it starts writing before the file is finished reading.

pdftk in.pdf cat 1-endright output - > in.pdf
Elliott B
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2 Answers2

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in your operation bash overwrite in.pdf file before call pdftk. You can't do it that way. I would recommend something like

pdftk in.pdf cat 1-endright output in-new.pdf && mv in-new.pdf in.pdf

This command also protect you when converting fail - file would not be overwriten.

undefine
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Use moreutils sponge for this: 

pdftk in.pdf cat 1-endright output - | sponge in.pdf

One bug I've found is that pdftk doesn't always return non-zero on error, meaning that in.pdf may be wiped (sponge doesn't wipe if zero exit status).

Tom Hale
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    Just out of curiosity: do you know what mechanisms `sponge` uses to determine exit-code of a process piped into it? I'm a bit puzzled. – Sasha Dec 20 '20 at 20:24