*BSD News Article 38548


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From: oceana@acsu.buffalo.edu (Oceana Research)
Subject: Reporting printer specific info via lpd/lpq
Message-ID: <D00FDB.GAr@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Sender: nntp@acsu.buffalo.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: mordred.eng.buffalo.edu
Organization: UB
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 03:36:47 GMT
Lines: 19

I have written a driver for a specific type of printer which can report 
back media info, error conditions, etc.  I would like to have this information
reported to any user who has access to this printer (either locally or
remotely) by simply checking the queue, ie: lpq -P<printer>.  I have been
able to do this by simply writing this info to the 'status' file in the
spool directory for the given printer.  Unfortunately, the contents of this
file is only displayed by lpq/lpd when there are jobs in the queue.  If 
there are jobs in the queue, lpq returns 'no entries'.  Is there are way of
having my printer info displayed by lpq regardless of the status of the 
queue?  Is there a different file to write to?  Can I interact with lpd?
Any help or references to documentation or books would be greatly appreciated.

Ken Murchison

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