printer file "name" - problem

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dennis Malen" <dmalen at malen.com>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 3:43 PM
Subject: Fw: printer file "name" - problem


> Now that the list has died down I will resubmit this problem as I never 
> received any clear cut answers.
>
> It really is a two part question, I will only submit part I.
>
> Is there any way to override in  "rreport" format a printer that is 
> defined? Ken will ask me what is defined mean! The printer is defined in 
> Extended Function under Options. The processing below does not do it. Ken 
> will ask me, "Do what?". It does not allow the ASCII file to be written to 
> the disk.
>
> This problem is not necessarily directed to Ken.
>
> Dennis Malen
> 516.479.5912
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Dennis Malen" <dmalen at malen.com>
> To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
> Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 2:38 PM
> Subject: printer file "name" - problem
>
>
>> Problem: In order to create a PRINTER FILE "/tmp/anyname" I am using the 
>> processing below. The initial problem was that I had to take out the 
>> definition of the current printer in the report form I was using. I could 
>> not keep the definition and override it with PRINTER TYPE "nocodes". I 
>> could get by that problem (but its a pain to copy over the report format 
>> and take it out).
>>
>> The next problem that arose is that when I viewed the file that had been 
>> created each record selected was a full screen. I then changed the number 
>> of lines of the report from 64 lines per page to one line per page. I 
>> also changed the heading so that only one line appeared. That worked 
>> fine. I don't think that is how PRINTER FILE "anyname" was intended. I 
>> should be able to create a viewable ascii file without having to do what 
>> I did.
>>
>> WHAT AM I DOING WRONG???????
>>
>>
>> Then: pa(1,*,g)
>>   -   -   -   -   -   -   -
>> If: pa=""
>> Then: PUTENV "FPONEHEAD","on"

This has no effect. You are already in rreport and rreport has already made 
its' one and only pass through the environment to look for such variables to 
modify it's own behaviour.
The only thing this would affect is if you next has a system command that 
ran rreport, that child instance of rreport would behave according to 
PFONEHEAD.


>>   -   -   -   -   -   -   -
>> If: pa=""
>> Then: printer type "nocodes"
>>   -   -   -   -   -   -   -
>> If: pa=""
>> Then:  printer file "/tmp/dailydep"
>>
>>  -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -
>>
>> Then:pa="p";end

OK so you are ensuring that this only ever gets run one time, that is good.

>>  -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -
>> @done" If:
>> Then: system "cat /tmp/dailydep|pg";end

If you intend to work with the file while still actually in rreport, then 
you most likely need to actively close the file in a way you wouldn't 
otherwise need to. If this pg command had been outside of processing in a 
new line after the rreport line in a menu batch script, it'd probably have 
worked, except for one other thing, which is ownership & permissions.

Whenever you are creating a file with filepro, and then needing to work with 
the file outside of filepro (and "ouside" includes system commands within 
processing) then you always need to pre-create the file with permissions and 
ownership that you will require later, and then let filepro write to the 
already existing empty file. In that case fp won't change the existing files 
properties, but if fp creates a file itself, then it's owned by user 
"filepro" and other users can't write to it or delete it, possibly not even 
read it in some cases.

So, if you really need to use system commands within report for this, then 
you need 2, one at the very beginning right with the printer type and 
printer file commands, and whatever you want in @done like you have already.

Since you now have to refer to the file at least 3 times, it should be a 
variable, and since you have @done, I think that automatically means you 
have @once, and so you should use that instead of performing those tests on 
every record, so rather than edit above, I'll just put the whole new thing 
below:


if: ' main report body
then: ' ....
if:
then: end
@once if:
then: fn(255,*,g)="/tmp/dailyrep"
if:
then: system noredraw "umask 0 ; >" < fn
if:
then: printer type "nocodes"
if:
then: printer file fn
if:
then: end
@done if:
then: printer flush
if:
then: system "pg" < fn
if:
end:

For pfonehead you simply must set this in the env before entering rreport. 
No other way to set it. Use F5 to make the menu action line into a script 
and insert a line above rreport:

PFONEHEAD=ON ; export PFONEHEAD
rreport ...

There is actually a neat, single-line syntax for this that would allow you 
to just edit the menu action line like so:
PFONEHEAD=ON rreport ...
(note, no semicolon and no export command)
But not everything that you can do in a script or at the command line works 
on a runmenu action line so even though it's still just one line, you may 
need to make it into a script to work. I don't remember offhand if this 
would work or not.

(although I had time for this, I still don't have time to post that code. 
It's full of assumptions and relies on external scripts & utils that our 
boxes always have but that I'd have to describe in some deatil to anyone 
else, or else rewrite it into something more self-contained, which I have 
little interest in doing since it wouldn't even be any better for me)

.... blah, got distracted by someone and forgot I had this mail almost ready 
to send hours ago.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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