Overview

This section provides you an overview and functionality of spooler.

The jBASE spooler accepts multiple print reports generated by PRINT statements in jBASE programs, or directly from the jBASE command line processors such as jQL or jCL.

The spooler controls the temporary storage of print jobs and arbitrates between multiple users who are creating print jobs, and the multiple devices for which they are intended. This means that several users can share the same system resources without each having to wait for an exclusive connection.

Submitted print reports are allocated a print job number and assigned to a formqueue. Each formqueue is associated with a specific device, which receives the despooled output. Multiple formqueues are supported, providing simultaneous despooling facilities to many different logical device types. The formqueues effectively comprise lists of print jobs waiting to be printed, in order of priority.

As each new print job is generated, it is linked (queued) to the end of a formqueue and given the lowest priority in that queue. Unless you specify otherwise, the job will usually be output as soon as the device becomes available and will then be deleted automatically.

You can use the SP-ASSIGN command to assign a formqueue and invoke any required options. You can for example, specify the number of copies you want, whether the initial output of a job is to be suppressed and whether a copy of the print job is to be kept after it is output.

You can use the SP-CREATE or SP-DEVICE commands to assign logical devices to formqueues. These commands are also available from the SP-STATUS menu.

A logical device can be any one of the following types:

• LPTR - output is directed to a specific UNIX device name.
• TAPE - output is directed to a tape device via jBASE tape support.
• PORT - output is directed to a port via the PORT-DESPOOL command.
• PROG - output is redirected to an external UNIX program.

All print reports generated by jBASE programs or jBASE processors are processed by the jlp command. This command interrogates the spooler tables to ascertain the current spooler options and formqueue assignment. It then assigns a job number to the report and queues the job to the designated formqueue.

The formqueues are despooled according to their logical device types by background daemons. The daemons are activated by the REST-SPOOLER command when starting the system, or individually by the SP-RESUME command or an option on the SP-JOBS menu.