printing to file

[Brian K. White]

On 11/4/2010 12:07 PM, scooter6 at gmail.com wrote:
> I am trying to diminish some of the paper we're using here and am trying to
> divert certain reports, etc to be printed to a file rather than printed to a
> printer.
>
> This is my first attempt at doing this, so forgive my ignorance to a degree
> ha
> In looking at the filePro manual, you should enter:
>
> printer file "/tmp/output"<--- as path to where you want the output
> directed to
> printer reset<---- to reset all printer functions back to where they
> started before processing started
>
> So, I have a report called recap for a file called PDMbal
>
> So, in output processing for 'recap', I do one simple looking to grabt the
> value of a dummy field
>
> Then: lookup sta = filename k=16     i=A   -nx
> Then: aa(4,allup)=sta(2)
>
> Then: printer file "/tmp/output"
> Then: printer reset
>
> It DOES create /tmp/output, however it appears all it captures in that is
> the print code hex values or something....
> If I look at the output of /tmp/output, using vi:
> ^[%100^[(10OU^O^[E
>
> The actual report then does print (kind of) to my system default printer,
> but prints it in 2 pages, the first page looks normal like it should,
> then it prints the 2nd record on a 2nd page, with much larger print
> type....(there are only 2 records on this report, and when printed
> 'normally' it prints both records out in condensed print style just as I've
> asked it to.
>
> I also even tried putting the printer commands above in a -v processing
> table, but that had no effect and I got the same results.
>
> What am I missing here???
>
> BTW this is SCO OpenServer 5.0.5 w/filePro 5.6.07R4

There are some differences between clerk & report, so talking report 
only here.

Assuming you want to control the filename dynamically from processing 
(meaning, using the command line arguments would be inconvenient)

You're probably best off putting -p /dev/null -pc nocodes on the command 
line
(to prevent any printer init codes or anything at all from going 
anywhere before you reach the point in processing where you've set a 
filename)

Then in processing, in @once, do

@once:
x = rand("-1")
of = /tmp/@fi{"_"{getenv("LOGNAME"){"_"{rand(){".pcl"
printer file of
printer type "hplaser"
end

Ideally you should also dispose of the file before exiting if possible, 
just to keep things self contained.

@done:
printer flush
printer reset
to = "someone at somewhere.com"
system "emailscript < to < of
x = remove(of)
end

Also, if you don't do it this way, you'll have to work around 
permissions problems which I've avoided here by ensuring 3 things agree 
with each other.
1) since I allowed fp to create the file with "printer file ...",
and 2) since the external command that uses the file only needs to 
_read_ it,
and 3) I used fp again to delete the file with remove() (not say, an rm 
command in the system command).

If you wanted to run the report to file and then not use the file until 
after exiting rreport, then you don't need anything in the @done. No 
printer reset, no system, no remove().

In the above example, the only reason I have the printer reset there is 
because you have to have at least a printer flush to ensure the data is 
all written to the file before some other process tries to read the 
file. Preferably a printer reset which actually releases all hold on the 
file.

A lot depends on what you want to do with the file at the end.
Do you want to write it to a permanent archive directory tree that users 
can browse later at will? How, by http? cgi? direct samba file share access?
Do you want to email it or ftp it somewhere?
Do you want to display it to the users screen on the spot and don't want 
to keep it any longer than necessary to get it into their web browser or 
pdf viewer?

That last is probably the most useful in most cases. We do _all_ our 
printing that way and it's great. But to do that relaibly and 
conveniently you need to set up some things at the system level to make 
things possible, even easy, in filepro. That would be a whole email by 
itself.

-- 
bkw