> The base syntax has not changed. But the elements described by the base have.


If the syntax hasn’t changed then there can’t be anything in the parser which 
is version-specific.

-- John

On 10 Mar 2014, at 01:43, Maruan Sahyoun <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi John,
> 
> it’s not about PDF versions but PDF versions and standards.
> 
> The base syntax has not changed. But the elements described by the base have.
> 
> BR
> Maruan Sahyoun
> 
> Am 10.03.2014 um 09:20 schrieb John Hewson <[email protected]>:
> 
>> Hi Maruan
>> 
>>> As of today PDFBox has no formal support for specific PDF versions in a way 
>>> that a specific version can be enforced, validated ...
>> 
>> Perhaps that is because there is not much demand for this? Nowadays everyone 
>> has instant access to the latest version of Adobe Reader so checking that a 
>> PDF can be opened with a specific version of Adobe Reader is not that useful 
>> anymore. There might be some niche cases, but I can’t think what they would 
>> be. For cases where it’s important that a PDF file is valid then a format 
>> such as PDF/A or PDF/X must be used instead as “vanilla" PDF is ambiguous.
>> 
>>> The PDFBox PDF/A validation does a good job for PDF/A 1b but it can not be 
>>> easily extended to other standards.
>> 
>> Yes, PDF/A is carefully validated because it is for archival purposes, 
>> unlike regular PDF files.
>> 
>>> Do you think that there is a need for a more formal support of such 
>>> standards and versions? The would influence some of the design decisions 
>>> for the parser and affect the base objects.
>> 
>> 
>> I can’t think of a reason why someone would want to parse a specific PDF 
>> version, so my answer is no, I don’t think there is such a need. Has the 
>> syntax of PDF even changed that much over the different versions?
>> 
>> — John
>> 
> 

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