Funny that even back in Solaris 8 days I had no trouble getting Sun lp/lpsched
to
support just about every one of the lpr filter types. Some (like the Fortran
control
characters, still used in some Fortran programs) are trivial and can be done
with an existing program (asa) and just a new filter definition; others require
scrounging
software. I even got CIF format working (with cif2ps from comp.sources.misc
archive,
vol 8, issue 100), but that's admittedly silly, since there may only be archaic
software that
produces CIF format. (had a time getting a sample file to test, as I recall)
Indeed, I was using ghostscript in an interface script to let a dot matrix
printer appear to
lp users as PostScript capable long before CUPS existed at all. It wasn't
difficult, it just
wasn't out-of-the-box plug-and-play no-brainer easy.
Anyway, I'm not thrilled with the notion of yanking these content options. As
long as CUPS
hasn't replaced the Sun derivative of traditional SVR4 lpsched, they could
still keep working,
because each lpr option has a corresponding lp option (or combination of
options).
For the curious, see the attached lp_notes.txt for how they correspond (as well
as for
most of the tricks I used to get full functionality).
More fundamental is this: as far as I can tell, CUPS lp has _no_ equivalent of
the
existing lp -T _content_type_ option. (it looks like the CUPS API _can_
provide a
MIME type, but there's no way to do it from the command line)
I gather that CUPS attempts to determine the content-type automatically, and
do the right thing. But since there's no extended attribute to stamp files
with a MIME type,
there's no assurance that a typing engine (looking at file content like
file(1), or looking
at file names, or both) will get it right, therefore the lack of a
command-line option
to specify content type is to my way of thinking a serious design flaw with
CUPS.
Even when it gets it right, one might wish to override that. Let's say I have
a PostScript
program that I want to print a source listing of rather than render. With the
older
lp, I can do
lp -T simple file.ps
but with something newer, I'd need to preprocess with some sort of
text-to-PostScript filter
(or else at a minimum, insert a blank line at the beginning to bypass trivial
checks for
%! at offset 0).
Similarly, CUPS support for legacy lpd clients _stinks_ from what I've read -
they drop
all support for lpr "filter" options, never mind that since they _do_ have a
way to specify
MIME type in the API, they _could_ easily have done better, even if not quite
100%.
CUPS is very capable, and more modern (and to many, more familiar) than
traditional
lp/lpsched. But the older lp/lpsched _could be persuaded to do just about
anything
for those who bothered to learn how; for those, CUPS, while mostly desirable,
falls
short on compatibility. And yanking features now that CUPS isn't compatible
with is IMO
not nearly as good as improving its compatibility so those features could be
more transparently
migrated. I don't think it would take much to improve CUPS in that regard. I
think yanking
features now might merely reduce the incentive to do the better deed.
--
This message posted from opensolaris.org
-------------- next part --------------
Here is an attempt to correlate option descriptions from the lpr man page
with the corresponding lp options. If -T or -y options are present in the
resulting lp command, that implies the use of filters, not all of which
are supplied or predefined. Note the lpr -[1234] options appear to
presently be ignored.
-P destination
Prints file on a specific printer or class of
printers(see lpadmin(1M)). Specify destination using
atomic, POSIX-style (server:destination), or Federated
Naming Service (FNS) (.../service/printer/...) names.
See printers.conf(4) for information regarding the
naming conventions for atomic and FNS names, and stan-
dards(5) for information regarding POSIX.
lp -d dest
-# number
Prints a specific number of copies. Specify number as
a positive integer. The default for number is 1.
lp -n number
-C class
Prints class as the job classification on the banner
page of the output. Enclose
class in double quotes if it contains blanks. If
class is not specified, the name of the system (as
returned by hostname) is printed as the job classifi-
cation. See hostname(1).
-J job
Prints job as the job name on the banner page of the
output. Enclose job in double quotes if it contains
blanks. If job is not specified, file (or in the
case of multiple files, the first file specified on
the command line) is printed as the job name on the
banner page of the output.
(not sure about this one)
looks like lpr -J job and lpr -C class are concatenated (with
"\n#####\n#####\t\t " in between if both are present) to form
lp -t title
which ultimately becomes argv[3] passed to the interface script, and
only is used if the banner is printed.
-T title
Prints a title on the banner page of the output.
Enclose title in double quotes if it contains blanks.
If title is not specified, file is printed on the
banner page.
(only applicable together with lpr -p option)
lp -T pr -y prtitle=value
-i indent
Indents the output a specific number of SPACE charac-
ters. Use indent to indicate the number of SPACE
characters to be indented. Specify indent as a posi-
tive integer. Eight SPACE characters is the default.
(only applicable together with lpr -p option)
lp -T pr -y indent=value
-1|-2|-3|-4 font
Mounts the specified font in the font position 1, 2,
3, or 4. Specify font as a valid font name.
(ignored)
-w cols
Prints file with pages of a specific width. cols
indicates the number of columns wide.
(only applicable together with lpr -p option)
lp -T pr -y width=value
-m Sends mail after file has printed. See mail(1). By
default, no mail is sent upon normal completion of a
print request.
lp -m
-h Suppresses printing of the banner page of the output.
lp -o nobanner
-s Uses full pathnames (as opposed to symbolic links) to
file rather than trying to copy them. This means file
should not be modified or removed until it has com-
pleted printing. Option -s only prevents copies of
local files from being made on the local machine.
Option -s only works with specified files. If the lpr
command is at the end of a pipeline, file is copied
to the spool.
(absence of lp -c)
- filter_option
Notifies the print spooler that file is not a stan-
dard text file. Enables the spooling daemon to use
the appropriate filters to print file.
filter_options offer a standard user interface. All
options may not be available for, or applicable to,
all printers.
Specify filter_option as a single character.
If filter_option is not specified and the printer can
interpret PostScriptO, inserting `%!' as the first
two characters of file causes file to be interpreted
as PostScript.
The following filter_options are supported:
p Use pr to format the files. See pr(1).
lp -T pr
l Print control characters and suppress page
breaks.
lp -T simple -y catv_filter
Note: I found I had to modify /etc/lp/fd/catv.fd and re-install it, with
the following change, to avoid some interesting problems. I have no idea
why it was like that in the first place; it doesn't make sense to me...
$ diff catv.fd.orig catv.fd
3c3,5
< Input types: simple,postscript
---
> # input type postscript messes up other filter chains
> # Input types: simple,postscript
> Input types: simple
t file contains troff (cat phototypesetter) binary
data.
lp -T otroff
(this filter is _not_ supplied, and I haven't found a really satisfactory
equivalent that isn't a major pain to build; fortunately I haven't needed it,
not presently having any clients that generate C/A/T phototypesetter output)
n file contains ditroff data from device indepen-
dent troff.
lp -T troff
d file contains tex data from in DVI format from
Stanford.
lp -T dvi
(this filter is _not_ supplied, but can be created using tex dvips
command wrapped in a script, combined with a reasonably simple filter
definition; in mine, the wrapping script supplies the options
-q -f -R -D ${Resolution}, with resolution defaulted to something reasonable
if not supplied via the line
Options: MODES dpi\=\([\.0-9]*\) = -D \1
(i.e. lp -y dpi=value) in the filter definition)
g file contains standard plot data produced by
plot(1B) routines.
lp -T plot
v file contains a raster image. printer must sup-
port an appropriate imaging model such as
PostScript in order to print the image.
lp -T raster
(this filter is _not_ supplied; mine looks like
Input types: raster
Output types: postscript
Printer types: any
Printers: any
Filter type: slow
Command: /usr/bin/env OPENWINHOME=/usr/openwin /usr/openwin/bin/rash
which handles Sun Raster files, although I think the original BSD (but not
necessarily SunOS 4.x) usage was to handle Versatec raster files, which
personally I have no use for. A smart raster file filter, capable of
handle both of those formats and maybe a couple of other common ones,
might be desirable)
c file contains data produced by cifplot.
lp -T cif
(this filter is _not_ supplied. I think I'm using a version of cif2ps
from the comp.sources.misc archive (Volume 8, Issue 100), wrapped in
a bit of script to throw away stderr. CIF is a rather obscure IC layout
format; I just set this up for the heck of an attempt at completeness.)
f Interprets the first character of each line as a
standard FORTRAN carriage control character.
lp -T fortran
(this filter is _not_ supplied, but just requires a trivial definition:
Input types: fortran
Output types: simple
Printer types: any
Printers: any
Filter type: slow
Command: /usr/bin/asa
)
