COBOL Manual for TNS/E Programs (H06.08+, J06.03+)

• SPOOLCOM
• PERUSE
The two spooler components that you are most likely to use are SPOOLCOM and PERUSE.
Unlike the supervisor, collectors, and print processes that run continuously and are named processes,
SPOOLCOM and PERUSE are processes you start when you need one and they usually are not
named. Both interact with the supervisor.
Supervisor Process
The supervisor process communicates with and monitors the other processes and decides when
and where to print output. The supervisor is an HP product and is started and managed by the
system manager. A system can have more than one spooler supervisor; this can be useful for
systems with vast numbers of print jobs or systems with special reporting needs. If a system has
only one supervisor, its name is usually $SPLS.
Collector Process
The collector process receives the output. Your spooler system has one or more collectors. Each
installation chooses its own names, but typical process names for spooler collectors are $S and
$C.
Print Process
Each print device accessible to a spooler has an associated print process that executes in
coordination with the spooler supervisor. The print process provided by HP reads the records stored
on disk and delivers them to its associated print device. An installation can provide its own print
processes that read the stored records and perform other operations on them, such as performing
a statistical analysis of data in the records or formatting the data for a special-purpose output
device.
SPOOLCOM
SPOOLCOM is an HP product. It is a loadfile that can be started by an interactive user or a system
operator. System operators, who are members of the super group, can do more with SPOOLCOM
than application programmers can.
As an application programmer running SPOOLCOM interactively, you can examine the job queue
and the status of print devices and change attributes of jobs you own.
A system operator running SPOOLCOM can examine the queue and the status of devices but can
also create and initialize the other components of the spooler system and make changes to the
attributes of any job in the spooler.
For more information about SPOOLCOM, see the Spooler Programmer’s Guide.
PERUSE
HP provides a perusal program named PERUSE, with which you can control and monitor your jobs
in the spooler. PERUSE is oriented more to the interactive user than to the system operator. When
a member of the super group calls PERUSE, that user must handle individual jobs rather than groups
of jobs, and PERUSE does not give that user the control over devices that SPOOLCOM does.
Your installation can write its own perusal processes. For more information about PERUSE, see the
Spooler Programmer’s Guide.
Jobs
A job is analogous to a file. When you write to the spooler, you are creating a job. The spooler
assigns each job a number. It starts at 1 and advances by 1 up to a maximum (specified when
the spooler was started), not to exceed 4095. When the spooler reaches the maximum job number,
900 Printer and Spooler Output