Printer settings and drivers from Samba server

[Rick Cochran]

Luke,

One thought I have had on the printer driver issue is that it would be
nice if pcap.c, et al, had some method of parsing the correct string
for the 'printer driver' share parameter out of the Unix printcap
file.

    printer driver = IBM 4019 LaserPrinter PS39

This would save having to maintain printer data in two places.  Our
printcap entries look like this:

osgood|osgood|IBM 4019 E20 Clark (goblin Xstation), parallel:\
        :lp=/dev/null:\
        :sd=/usr/spool/lpd/osgood:\
        :af=/usr/adm/osgood-acct:\
        :lf=/usr/adm/osgood-errs:\
        :mx#0:\
        :if=/usr/local/lib/transcript/psif.goblin:\
        :of=/usr/local/lib/transcript/psof:sb:\
        :gf=/usr/local/lib/transcript/psgf:\
        :tf=/usr/local/lib/transcript/pstf:\
        :nf=/usr/local/lib/transcript/psnf:

Perhaps something like this would work:

osgood|osgood|IBM 4019 LaserPrinter PS39;E20 Clark (goblin Xstation), parallel:\

where the Samba printcap parser knows enough to use the first ';' delimited
field of the 'comment' as the 'printer driver' share parameter.

The problem then becomes whether to include both fields in the
'comment' share parameter.  A long 'printer driver' name could push
the 'comment' over the 32 character maximum, while having to repeat
printer description data in the 'comment' field of the printcap entry
could push a printcap line over the 80 character line limit (there are
a lot of brain-dead lpd implementations).

Another possibility is to use the 'cm' parameter in printcap:

          cm  D   str  NULL        comment identifying printer (LPQ)

Just thinking out loud.

-Rick

-- 
|Rick Cochran		  			      phone: 607-255-7223|
|Cornell Materials Science Center			FAX: 607-255-3957|
|E20 Clark Hall, Ithaca, N.Y. 14853	      email: rick at msc.cornell.edu|
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