jwgrahamjr
Programmer
Background info:
Novell 6SP3, clients are using DOS applications in Win98 to print various hardcopy reports. These DOS applications have hardcoded CAPTURE, NPRINT and SPOOL commands in them.
Problem (with example):
The software (I have the source code) issues the following command:
CAPTURE F=2 Q=P2 NT NB C=2
If you don't already know this is simply saying "use form 2, use queue p2 on the default server, no tabs, no banners and 2 copies".
The software redirects regular ASCII output to LPT1 or PRN which is picked up by this CAPTURE command.
For a typical 10 page document, you would expect two copies to be printed. Instead, one copy is printed perfectly. On the second copy, about half of the first page is missing and the rest prints out fine.
I set up a simple test. I tried printing "This is a test" 10 times on separate lines using a C program that printed to LPT1. Using CAPTURE and setting copies=2 this test program printed the first page fine and only printed the word "Test" on the second page. Something is truncating the second page. I then tried setting C=3 with the capture command. With C=3 the third page prints garbled text on the first line and then prints the next 9 lines fine. Bizarre.
This server is using old-style queue based printing (obviously). Everything else seems to be printing fine including printing from the ancient WordPerfect 5.1 from DOS.
Other items of interest
I modified the source code to use SPOOL instead of CAPTURE. Same problem occurred. I also tried redirecting the output to a file and using NPRINT, specifying 2 copies and the same thing happened using NPRINT too.
Any ideas on why the "C=" (copies) part of CAPTURE,SPOOL and NPRINT are not working? Unfortunately unless this client upgrades to windows applications they depend on these old DOS programs to print.
Novell 6SP3, clients are using DOS applications in Win98 to print various hardcopy reports. These DOS applications have hardcoded CAPTURE, NPRINT and SPOOL commands in them.
Problem (with example):
The software (I have the source code) issues the following command:
CAPTURE F=2 Q=P2 NT NB C=2
If you don't already know this is simply saying "use form 2, use queue p2 on the default server, no tabs, no banners and 2 copies".
The software redirects regular ASCII output to LPT1 or PRN which is picked up by this CAPTURE command.
For a typical 10 page document, you would expect two copies to be printed. Instead, one copy is printed perfectly. On the second copy, about half of the first page is missing and the rest prints out fine.
I set up a simple test. I tried printing "This is a test" 10 times on separate lines using a C program that printed to LPT1. Using CAPTURE and setting copies=2 this test program printed the first page fine and only printed the word "Test" on the second page. Something is truncating the second page. I then tried setting C=3 with the capture command. With C=3 the third page prints garbled text on the first line and then prints the next 9 lines fine. Bizarre.
This server is using old-style queue based printing (obviously). Everything else seems to be printing fine including printing from the ancient WordPerfect 5.1 from DOS.
Other items of interest
I modified the source code to use SPOOL instead of CAPTURE. Same problem occurred. I also tried redirecting the output to a file and using NPRINT, specifying 2 copies and the same thing happened using NPRINT too.
Any ideas on why the "C=" (copies) part of CAPTURE,SPOOL and NPRINT are not working? Unfortunately unless this client upgrades to windows applications they depend on these old DOS programs to print.
