writing out to virtual printer

[Kathy Young]

Does anyone have threads that send output to a virtual printer? (Cloverleaf 5.3 on AIX 5.3). I need to send messages out to a thread where the receiving system is a virtual printer. I know how to set up the print spooling in AIX, I just can’t figure out the NetConfig. Do I write it to a file and write a tcl to move messages to the print queue?

Thanks in advance!

Kathy

Topic

[Nathan Martin]

If you haven’t already, see the man pages for lp or lpr.

Your Tcl proc can print data through standard input, or if you prefer, write a temporary file first.

[Kathy Young]

Nathan –

This sounds like it should be elementary, but I’m having trouble with the thread definition. What protocol do I use? Where do I apply the Tcl.

I’m almost there with the Tcl – it’s the thread definitions that I’m stumbling over.

Thanks, Kathy

[Nathan Martin]

You could build a UPoC protocol handler that manages thread status and “writing” messages to the printer.  But, almost any “user point of control” or “TPS” in almost any protocol thread could do the work.

For example, it might be easiest to make a file thread that writes to /dev/null and calls your print routine from the outbound data proc.

Found an example in the scripts area:

http://clovertech.infor.com/viewtopic.php?t=179” class=”bbcode_url”>http://clovertech.infor.com/viewtopic.php?t=179

Either way, more error checking might be good:  If the print command fails, you could send a copy of the message to the ERROR database.  Alternatively, you could KILL successfully printed messages and continue any failed ones to a file or other thread.  There are almost too many  options.

[Ben Michael]

Hi There,

Does anyone have an example of TCL to dump the message ‘as is’ to a printer.

And if possible – where it fails to kick off that command dumps output in the error database.

Thanks,

Ben

[Kevin Kinnell]

Whups, too little information Ben.     😉

Are you wanting to dump the ‘control’ characters (“r”,”n”) as is?  Or do you want

to have the kind of output an ultra-long error db dump produces for the message?

Is that what you mean by not triggering the db dump?

Where are you going to use the Tcl, at a UPoC?

Any code is probably contingent on what you’re trying to do.

[Author]

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