The LP spool system does not create files to be spooled, as can the SP spool system when spooling output from an LU to a spoolfile. Instead, the LP spooler prints files that have already been created by some other means.
Any RTE file type may be spooled. In general, the files fall into three categories:
DRecordstructured text files of type 0 or types 2 and above. These files are printed as a series of FMP records, using a separate XLUEX call to write each record if printed on an RTE system.
DRedirected LU output captured using the SP spool system. These files may have headers that contain the EXEC CNTWD parameters and EXEC 3 control request information from the redirected EXEC calls that generated the output. The LP spooler can use these headers when printing the file on an RTE system to reproduce the print formatting specified in the original EXEC calls.
DFiles of type 1, which contain a •byte stream" of print data that is not organized into FMP records. Type 1 files must conform to a special format that tells the spooler how many bytes of the file are valid print data, as documented below. These are normally introduced into the spool system only by the spool system itself when receiving a request spooled from a remote UNIX host.
In any case, various options are available to specify print formatting, such as to treat column one as FORTRANstyle carriage control. See the following section •HPSupplied Printer Interfaces" for a list of the options supported by the HP interfaces.
The processing performed on the file data to be printed actually depends on the operation of the printer interface used to print the file. The discussion of file formats in this documentation applies only to the printer interfaces supplied by HP; see the documentation on the particular interface for the file processing of nonHP interfaces.
As mentioned previously, files of type 1 must be in a special format. The first block of a type 1 file contains an ASCII representation of the number of valid bytes in the file in the first 12 characters, blankextended. This count tells the spooler how many bytes to actually print, since type 1 files contain no EOF position information. The rest of block 1 is unused. The remaining blocks, starting at block 2, contain the byte stream to print. If the type 1 file was spooled from UNIX, then the byte stream is the unaltered contents of the UNIX file. The •rtestd" printer interface supports printing files in UNIX format with the appropriate carriage control added; see the section on that interface for more information.
LP Spool System 25