Subject: Re: Quick and dirty lpr for text files
From: [email-masked]

9 Jun 1998 22:31:13 -0700
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>   John F. Kolen ([email-masked])
>   Mon, 8 Jun 1998 13:46:45 -0500
>   
>       
>>The only problem with this batch file is that it does not work for
>>network printers, which was the reason I originally wrote print.c.

>Thanks for letting every one see version 1 of my script!  BTW,
>this works for networked printers: have the printer grab an lpt port.

Ah, I will have to tell John Davis that, since he is convinced that
the Windows version of slrn must have its very own winspool.lib printer
code to reach his network printer.

>The real problem is that the version 1 script does not work if you have a
>postscript printer on the other end of the line.  While the printer driver
>does the routing for you, it does no conversion. You would need to enscript the
>text file.

Depending on the printer, the printer's driver has a hook that brings up
its Dos driver when the copy command is used.

I have a more serious question for you:  What compiler are you using for
your `popen' or `_popen' commands?  The Mingw32 system passes an extra
`-P' parameter to any program called by _popen.  Hence, your batch file
will not work, because it detects `-P' as a file, not a parameter.  Also,
`copy con' looks good on paper, but hangs in real time on my Windows 95
system, and I have tried it stripped down to a test program and running
from the piped printer code in John Davis's slrn program.

In fact, piping doesn't work all that well with crtdll.dll in general.

  Since I didn't want my students to have to deal with printer
>drivers, I sent it through wordpad.
>
You mean notepad, or does wordpad also have an undocumented command line?

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