[jcifs] Re: Accessing print shares

[Mike Coleman]

Michael B Allen <mba2000 <at> ioplex.com> writes:

> 
> On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 16:04:31 +0000 (UTC)
> Mike Coleman <mike.coleman <at> anixter.com> wrote:
> 
> > A long time ago several questions were posted about accessing print
> > shares. The concensus was (I believe) to use RPC for printing. However, I
> > was able to make a very minor modification to jCIFS which allows creating
> > print jobs. I was 
> 
> No, the reason is that there is no way to generate anything meaningful to
> send to the printer. Even sending PostScript requires a little tweeking
> so unless you're just sending raw data that's already processed there's
> no point in creating an API for printing. If someone knows how to hack
> into the AWT to generate PostScript, PLC, or whatever please let me know.
> 
> Mike
> 


I understand that we don't want to build an API for printing. That's not what 
I'm proposing. What I AM doing is sending raw data.

I'm not interested in performing operations like 

Graphics.drawLine(....) 

to a shared printer. I'm only interested in operations like 

OutputStream.write("Hello World".getBytes() );

to an NT Share that "happens" to be setup as a printer.

One may ask why. The way we are utilizing jCIFS at my company is to control 
devices connected to a PC through a COM port or parallel port. These devices 
are shared in windows via CIFS. Additionally, these devices are controlled 
using plain text. So all I need to accomplish is to send plain text to the 
share.