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1
2 Foomatic 4.0.17
3 ===============
4
5
6 foomatic-filters
7 ----------------
8
9 Filter scripts used by the printer spoolers to convert the incoming
10 PostScript data into the printer's native format using a
11 printer/driver specific, but spooler-independent PPD file.
12
13 http://www.openprinting.org/
14
15 This README contains mainly info for developers. See the file USAGE if
16 you want to know how to use Foomatic.
17
18
19 Copying
20 -------
21
22 This package is free software and can be redistributed and/or modified
23 under the terms of the GNU General Public License; either version 2 of
24 the License, or (at your option) any later version.
25
26
27 Authors
28 -------
29
30 Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter@gmail.com>
31 Lars Uebernickel <larsuebernickel@gmx.de>
32 Grant Taylor <gtaylor@picante.com>
33 Helge Blischke <h.blischke@acm.org>
34
35
36 Bugs
37 ----
38
39 If you spot a data error or any other bug, please report it on the
40 OpenPrinting bug tracking system:
41
42 http://bugs.linux-foundation.org/
43
44 Choose "OpenPrinting" as the product and "foomatic-filters" as the component.
45
46
47 Intro
48 -----
49
50 For getting Foomatic PPD files for this version, go to
51
52 http://www.openprinting.org/
53
54 See the README file of "foomatic-db-engine" for a (more or less)
55 complete overview of Foomatic.
56
57 User discussion happens on:
58
59 http://forums.openprinting.org/list.php?34
60
61 Developer mailing list:
62
63 https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-foomatic
64
65
66 Supported printing systems/spoolers
67 -----------------------------------
68
69 CUPS - Common Unix Printing System (http://www.cups.org/)
70 SOLARIS - Solaris LP (lpsched)
71 LPD - Line Printer Daemon (Does this have a home page anywhere?)
72 LPRng - LPR - New Generation (https://sourceforge.net/projects/lprng/)
73 GNUlpr - An enhanced LPD (http://sf.net/projects/lpr, development stopped)
74 PPR - Page PRinter spooler (http://ppr.sourceforge.net/, development
75 stopped)
76 PDQ - Print, Don't Queue (http://pdq.sf.net/, development stopped)
77 CPS - Coherent Printing System (http://www.tww.cx/cps.php, development
78 stopped)
79 --- - Direct, spooler-less printing (http://www.openprinting.org/)
80
81 As most of the supported printing systems are not actively developed
82 any more, support for them will be removed in a later version of
83 foomatic-rip. This can even happen before 5.x. For now their support
84 is deprecated and there were only few tests done during the
85 development of foomatic-rip 4.x. So be prepared that there are bugs
86 (patches welcome). Testing were mostly done with the de-facto standard
87 CUPS and spooler-less.
88
89
90 What is in this package?
91 ------------------------
92
93 This package contains only two programs, its man pages, and a test
94 suite. The programs arw foomatic-rip and beh (Backend Error
95 Handler). foomatic-rip is the main
96 PostScript/PDF-to-printer's-native-language filter and beh is a CUPS
97 backend wrapper for fine-tuning how a CUPS queue should behave on
98 failure of its backend.
99
100 foomatic-rip works with all spoolers and always uses PPD files for
101 printer/driver capabilities info. Manufacturer-supplied PPDs (in most
102 cases of of PostScript printers) can be used, too.
103
104 foomatic-rip is now written in C, in contrary to Perl in Foomatic
105 3.x. This allows foomatic-rip to link directly with
106 libraries. foomatic-rip currently uses only the standard
107 libraries. The functionality of the former foomatic-gswrapper is now
108 integrated into foomatic-rip, so the foomatic-gswrapper is not needed
109 any more.
110
111 beh is still written in Perl and does not need anything else than a
112 Perl interpreter. It is only for use with CUPS.
113
114 The test/ subdirectory contains a test suite, originally developed for
115 the distribution compliance tests of the LSB. It also serves as a
116 regression test for further development of foomatic-rip. To execute
117 the test, go into that directory and run "./testfoomaticrip" as root
118 (as normal user the test series #13, CUPS queues, will not work) and
119 you test the foomatic-rip installed on your system. You can modify the
120 testing configuration by the variables in the beginning of the
121 script. The test suite will not get installed with the "make install"
122 command.
123
124 The main directory contains the source code of foomatic-rip, beh, and
125 the infrastructure for building and installing the package. It also
126 contains the documentation.
127
128
129 Dependencies
130 ------------
131
132 To build this package you need a C compiler, and its standard libraries.
133
134 To run beh a Perl interpreter (5.6.0 and newer) is needed.
135
136 To connect to remote printers in non-CUPS printing environments, you
137 need additional connectivity software (as "rlpr", "nc", "smbspool',
138 ...).
139
140
141 How does it work?
142 -----------------
143
144 foomatic-rip is a filter which takes PostScript or PDF (and for
145 non-CUPS operation also certain other formats which will get converted
146 to PostScript) from standard input and translates it to the printer's
147 native language. The resulting data is usually directed to standard
148 output, but depending on the spooler abnd its configuration it can
149 also be directed to elsewhere. The information how to do this
150 translation it gets from a PPD file, from command line options,
151 environment variables, and spooler configuration files.
152
153 foomatic-rip does the following steps to do its work:
154
155
156 Spooler auto-detection
157
158 At first, foomatic-rip reads its command line and a certain assortment
159 of environment variables. With this information it determines from
160 which spooler it was called, since every spooler calls its filter(s)
161 with different command lines and different information supplied via
162 environment variables.
163
164
165 Gathering all information to execute the print job
166
167 Next step after figuring out what the spooler is, is collecting the
168 information about the print job which was not found in the first
169 step. Now the knowledge of which spooler is used is taken into account
170 for interpreting the information.
171
172
173 Reading the PPD file
174
175 In one of the previous steps we have found the name of the PPD file
176 assigned to the print queue currently in use. Now the PPD file is read
177 to get all information needed to build the renderer's (Usually, the
178 renderer is Ghostscript, when no renderer is needed, as for a
179 PostScript printer, "cat" is used) command line, the available
180 options, their default values, and how to apply them. After having
181 parsed the PPD file we have a renderer command line and a list of
182 options with the range of possible settings and a default setting. For
183 LPRng, LPD, GNUlpr, and spooler-less printing we get also the
184 so-called postpipe here, defining a shell command line into which
185 foomatic-rip should direct its output. If no postpipe is found, the
186 output data goes to standard output. The postpipe allows to print to
187 destinations which are not directly supported by the spooler.
188
189
190 Applying user-supplied settings
191
192 All option settings which the user has supplied on the command line
193 are checked whether they are valid (option exists, choice in range)
194 and then applied to the list of default settings, replacing the
195 defaults by the values given by the user. The options not mentioned on
196 the command line keep their default values from the PPD file.
197
198
199 Check for the "docs" option
200
201 foomatic-rip accepts a special option which is not defined in the PPD
202 file, the "docs" option. When the user supplies it, he wants to print
203 a listing of all options available for the printer/driver combo in
204 use. So the incoming data on standard input is discarded and a
205 sub-process for generating the option listing in plain text form is
206 launched. Standard input of the main process is connected to the
207 output of the sub-process. Now the main process behaves as the option
208 listing would be the job which the user has sent.
209
210
211 Print files
212
213 With some spoolers the jobs to be printed are supplied in files.
214 In this case we close standard input and open the file on the
215 standard input handler. This way the following steps read from the
216 file instead of from standard input. The rest of the foomatic-rip
217 process is repeated for every input file, to print them one after the
218 other.
219
220
221 Raw queue
222
223 When we have a raw queue, all the rest of the incoming data is
224 directly passed to standard output or to the postpipe now. The
225 following steps will be omitted then.
226
227
228 Print the job
229
230 Jobs are usually expected to be sent in PostScript or PDF format
231 (handling of other formats in non-CUPS environment will be shown
232 later). PostScript is the standard format for print jobs under Unix
233 and Linux for many years. Currently, we are on the way to move to PDF
234 as standard format
235 (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/OpenPrinting/PDF_as_Standard_Print_Job_Format).
236 Therefore we accept both formats. In most cases Ghostscript is the
237 renderer which understands both formats equally. So we do not convert
238 PDF to PostScript if either the renderer command line starts with "gs
239 ..." as then Ghostscript is the renderer and no pre-processing of
240 incoming PostScript happens or we have a dedicated commad line
241 prototype for PDF defined in the PPD file
242 ("*FoomaticRIPCommandLinePDF:" keyword). In addition there must be no
243 option at all which is implemented by inserting active PostScript code
244 (not only comments starting with "%") into a PostScript input data
245 stream. If these criteria are not fulfilled, the PDF job will be
246 converted to PostScript.
247
248 After all the preparation, and if the job is PostScript the data
249 stream is examined for traces of option settings supposed to be
250 applied to the renderer's command line or to the JCL (Job Command
251 Language, for example PJL) header which is sent to the printer before
252 the renderer's output is sent. PPD-aware applications and spoolers
253 stuff option settings directly into the file, they do not necessarily
254 send PPD options by the command line. There is also stuffed in
255 PostScript code to apply option settings given by the command line of
256 the printing command ("lpr", "lp", ...) and to set the defaults given
257 in the PPD file.
258
259 Examination strategy: We read lines from standard input until the
260 first %%Page: comment appears and save them as @psheader. This is the
261 page-independent header part of the PostScript file. The PostScript
262 interpreter (renderer) must execute this part once before rendering
263 any assortment of pages. Then pages can be printed in any arbitrary
264 selection or order. All option settings we find here will be collected
265 in the default option set for the RIP (Raster Image Processor,
266 renderer) command line.
267
268 Now the pages will be read and sent to the renderer, one after the
269 other. Every page is read into memory until the %%EndPageSetup comment
270 appears (or a certain amount of lines was read in the case that there
271 is no %%EndPageSetup). So we can get option settings only valid for
272 this page. If we have such settings we set them in the modified
273 command set for this page.
274
275 If the renderer is not running yet (first page) we start it with the
276 command line built from the current modified command set and send the
277 first page to it, in the end we leave the renderer running and keep
278 input and output pipes open, so that it can accept further pages. If
279 the renderer is still running from the previous page and the current
280 modified command set is the same as the one for the previous page, we
281 send the page. If the command set is different, we close the renderer,
282 re-start it with the command line built from the new modified command
283 set, send the header again, and then the page.
284
285 After the last page the trailer (%%Trailer) is sent.
286
287 The output pipe of this program stays open all the time so that the
288 spooler does not assume that the job has finished when the renderer is
289 re-started.
290
291 Non DSC-conforming documents will be read until a certain line number
292 is reached. Options for the renderer's command line or the JCL header
293 appearing later will be ignored. This means that option settings in
294 the page headers will not be taken into account.
295
296 If options are implemented by PostScript code supposed to be stuffed
297 into the job's PostScript data we stuff the code for all these options
298 into our job data, So all default settings made in the PPD file (the
299 user can have edited the PPD file to change them) are taken care of
300 and command line options get also applied. To give priority to
301 settings made by applications we insert the options's code in the
302 beginnings of their respective sections, so that sommething, which is
303 already inserted, gets executed after our code. Missing sections are
304 automatically created. In non-DSC-conforming files we insert the
305 option code in the beginning of the file. This is the same policy as
306 used by the "pstops" filter of CUPS.
307
308 If CUPS is the spooler, the option settings were already inserted by
309 the "pstops" filter (both PPD defaults and user-supplied options), so
310 we don't insert them again. The only thing we do is correcting
311 settings of numerical options when they were set to a value not
312 available as choice in the PPD file, As "pstops" does not support
313 "real" numerical options, it sees these settings as an invalid choice
314 and stays with the default setting. In this case we correct the
315 setting in the first occurence of the option's code, as this one is
316 the one added by CUPS, later occurences come from applications and
317 should not be touched.
318
319 If the input data is PDF then we do not search for options in the data
320 stream nor do we try to insert settings, as this is not forseen by
321 PDF. As told above, data in PDF format is only passed on as PDF if
322 there are no options in the PPD file which are implemented by
323 PostScript code to be embedded in the data stream. All options are
324 command line or JCL options. If there are page-dependent option
325 changes we always restart the renderer with the changed JCL and
326 command line options. We tell the renderer by command line options
327 which pages he has to print.
328
329 If we are in a non-CUPS environment and the input is neither
330 PostScript nor PDF (if there is no "%!" after $maxlinestopsstart
331 lines) a file conversion filter (input format -> PostScript) will
332 automatically be applied to the incoming data, so that we will process
333 the resulting PostScript here. This way we have always PostScript data
334 here and so we can apply the printer/driver features described in the
335 PPD file. For the file conversion filter two subprocesses are started,
336 the task of the first one is to pass the already buffered lines into
337 the filter and then to continue reading standard input (without
338 parsing the data) to pass the rest of the job to the filter. The
339 second subprocess is the filter itself, getting its standard input
340 from the first subprocess and the giving its standard output to the
341 main process. This way the main process has again PostScript as its
342 standard input.
343
344 Supported file conversion filters are "a2ps", "enscript", "mpage",
345 "paps", and spooler-specific filters. All filters convert plain text to
346 PostScript, "a2ps" also other formats. The conversion filter is always
347 used when one prints the documentation pages, as they are created
348 as plain text, when CUPS is the spooler "pstops" is executed after
349 the filter so that the default option settings from the PPD file and
350 CUPS-specific options as N-up get applied. On regular printouts one
351 gets always PostScript or PDF when CUPS is the spooler and PostScript
352 in the case of PPR, so the filter is only used for regular printouts
353 under LPD, LPRng, GNUlpr, PDQ, or without spooler.
354
355 The main process keeps always parsing the PostScript input or feeding
356 through the PDF input, it launches the renderer in one subprocess and
357 launches an additional subprocess for bracketing the renderer's output
358 with the JCL commands and putting the resulting data to standard
359 output or to the postpipe.
360
361
362 Overview of the subprocesses
363 ----------------------------
364
365 To do the filtering without loading the whole file into memory we work
366 on a data stream, we read the data line by line, analyse it to decide what
367 filters to use and start the filters if we have found out which we need.
368 We buffer the data only as long as we didn't determine which filters to
369 use for this piece of data and with which options.
370
371 foomatic-rip splits into up to 6 parallel processes to do the whole
372 filtering (listed in the order of the data flow):
373
374 KID0: Generate documentation pages (only jobs with "docs" option)
375 KID2: Put together already read data and current input stream for
376 feeding into the file conversion filter (only non-PostScript
377 and "docs" jobs)
378 KID1: Run the file conversion filter to convert non-PostScript
379 input into PostScript (only non-PostScript and "docs" jobs)
380 MAIN: Prepare the job auto-detecting the spooler, reading the PPD,
381 extracting the options from the command line, and parsing
382 the job data itself. It analyses the job data to check
383 whether it is PostScript and starts KID1/KID2 if not, it
384 also stuffs PostScript code from option settings into the
385 PostScript data stream. It starts the renderer (KID3/KID4)
386 as soon as it knows its command line and restarts it when
387 page-specific option settings need another command line
388 or different JCL commands.
389 KID3: The rendering process. In most cases Ghostscript, "cat"
390 for native PostScript printers with their manufacturer's
391 PPD files.
392 KID4: Put together the JCL commands and the renderer's output
393 and send all that either to STDOUT or pipe it into the
394 command line defined with $postpipe.
395