Spooler Programmer's Guide

Introduction to the Spooler Subsystem
Spooler Programmer’s Guide—522287-002
1-25
Job Numbers
The meanings of the job states are as follows:
The description of the Spoolcom JOB command in the Spooler Utilities Reference
Manual lists all the ways a user can alter a job. To change job attributes, the job must
be in the hold state. The JOB subcommands HOLD, START, and DELETE allow a job
to be put on hold, taken off hold, or deleted from the spooler subsystem.
Job Numbers
At the time it is created, each job is assigned a number in the range 1 through the
maximum number of jobs allowed in the spooler subsystem. That maximum is
specified when the spooler is first initialized and cannot exceed 65535. Job numbers
are assigned consecutively. If the last number assigned is the maximum, the next job
number assigned will be 1. If the number that would be assigned to a job is already in
use, the next available number is assigned.
A job numbered 0 indicates a corrupted control file. Recovery requires at least a
warmstart and rebuild of the spooler; if this is not successful, a coldstart is required.
Occurrences of Jobs
A job routed to a group enters the device queue of each device connected to the
locations in that group. Each entry in a device queue is a separate occurrence of the
job, indicating that the job has been routed to multiple locations.
OPEN The job has been added to the spooler. It remains in this state until it has
finished spooling.
READY The job is ready to print, but it has not yet begun to print because another
job is ahead of it in the device queue or because its location is not
connected to a device.
HOLD You can place a job on HOLD in order to prevent it from printing or to
change its attributes. You can put a job on HOLD at any time except
when it is in the OPEN state.
If you put on HOLD a job that has multiple occurrences, then all
occurrences of the job lose their place in their respective device queues.
A currently printing job is also placed on HOLD.
If you put a job on HOLD and then immediately take it off HOLD, you
remove the job from the device queue and then add it back to the queue.
This causes the job to lose its place in the device queue.
PRINT The job is being printed.
If you set the HOLDAFTER flag on a job, the spooler places the job on
HOLD after printing is complete, rather than deleting it. When you later
remove the HOLD, the job will print another time and again enter the
HOLD state until you either delete it or remove the HOLD.