Spooler Programmer's Guide

Spooler Programmer’s Guide—522287-002
3-1
3
Using the Spooler Print Procedures,
Print Processes, and Perusal
Processes
The spooler print procedures enable print and perusal processes to access spooled
data and enable all print processes to communicate with the spooler supervisor. This
section describes how to use the spooler print procedures and write print and perusal
processes.
Print and Perusal Processes
A print process retrieves spooled job data from disk and sends it to the appropriate
output device. The spooler can include several print processes, each controlling a
number of different output devices.
Every device known to the supervisor has a print process associated with it. When a
device becomes available and a job is waiting to print on that device, the supervisor
instructs the print process associated with the device to begin reading and printing the
job.
The standard print processes communicate with the supervisor and keep track of
devices and jobs in a manner that is entirely transparent to the users of the spooler.
However, if you choose to write your own print process, be aware of the interaction
between print processes and the supervisor. The print procedures make this task
easier. An example of a user-written print process is shown in Appendix A, Sample
Print Process.
A process that can access spooled data without communicating with the supervisor is
called a
perusal process. The Peruse utility is the perusal process supported by HP.
An example of a perusal process is shown in Appendix B, Sample Perusal Process.
Summary of Print Procedures
The procedures involved in accessing spooled data are PRINTSTART, PRINTSTART2,
PRINTINFO, and PRINTREAD.
The procedures involved in communicating with the spooler control process are
PRINTINIT, PRINTINIT2, PRINTSTATUS, PRINTSTATUS2, PRINTREADCOMMAND,
PRINTCOMPLETE, and PRINTCOMPLETE2.
The program filename of the standard print process is $SYSTEM.SYSTEM.FASTP.
Table 3-1
contains a summary of the print procedures. You can find the complete
syntax and considerations of the spooler print procedures in Section 4, Spooler