Originální popis anglicky:
lp - send files to a printer
Návod, kniha: POSIX Programmer's Manual
lp [-c][-d dest][-n
copies ][-msw][-o
option]... [-t
title][file ...]
The
lp utility shall copy the input files to an output destination in an
unspecified manner. The default output destination should be to a hardcopy
device, such as a printer or microfilm recorder, that produces non-volatile,
human-readable documents. If such a device is not available to the
application, or if the system provides no such device, the
lp utility
shall exit with a non-zero exit status.
The actual writing to the output device may occur some time after the
lp
utility successfully exits. During the portion of the writing that corresponds
to each input file, the implementation shall guarantee exclusive access to the
device.
The
lp utility shall associate a unique
request ID with each
request.
Normally, a banner page is produced to separate and identify each print job.
This page may be suppressed by implementation-defined conditions, such as an
operator command or one of the
-o option values.
The
lp utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
The following options shall be supported:
- -c
- Exit only after further access to any of the input files is
no longer required. The application can then safely delete or modify the
files without affecting the output operation. Normally, files are not
copied, but are linked whenever possible. If the -c option is not
given, then the user should be careful not to remove any of the files
before the request has been printed in its entirety. It should also be
noted that in the absence of the -c option, any changes made to the
named files after the request is made but before it is printed may be
reflected in the printed output. On some implementations, -c may be
on by default.
- -d dest
- Specify a string that names the destination ( dest).
If dest is a printer, the request shall be printed only on that
specific printer. If dest is a class of printers, the request shall
be printed on the first available printer that is a member of the class.
Under certain conditions (printer unavailability, file space limitation,
and so on), requests for specific destinations need not be accepted.
Destination names vary between systems.
If
-d is not specified, and neither the
LPDEST nor
PRINTER
environment variable is set, an unspecified destination is used. The
-d
dest option shall take precedence over
LPDEST , which in turn
shall take precedence over
PRINTER . Results are undefined when
dest contains a value that is not a valid destination name.
- -m
- Send mail (see mailx ) after the files have been
printed. By default, no mail is sent upon normal completion of the print
request.
- -n copies
- Write copies number of copies of the files, where
copies is a positive decimal integer. The methods for producing
multiple copies and for arranging the multiple copies when multiple
file operands are used are unspecified, except that each file shall
be output as an integral whole, not interleaved with portions of other
files.
- -o option
- Specify printer-dependent or class-dependent
options. Several such options may be collected by specifying
the -o option more than once.
- -s
- Suppress messages from lp.
- -t title
- Write title on the banner page of the output.
- -w
- Write a message on the user's terminal after the files have
been printed. If the user is not logged in, then mail shall be sent
instead.
The following operand shall be supported:
- file
- A pathname of a file to be output. If no file
operands are specified, or if a file operand is '-' , the
standard input shall be used. If a file operand is used, but the
-c option is not specified, the process performing the writing to
the output device may have user and group permissions that differ from
that of the process invoking lp.
The standard input shall be used only if no
file operands are specified,
or if a
file operand is
'-' . See the INPUT FILES section.
The input files shall be text files.
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
lp:
- LANG
- Provide a default value for the internationalization
variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization
Variables for the precedence of internationalization variables used to
determine the values of locale categories.)
- LC_ALL
- If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of
all the other internationalization variables.
- LC_CTYPE
- Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to
multi-byte characters in arguments and input files).
- LC_MESSAGES
- Determine the locale that should be used to affect the
format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error and
informative messages written to standard output.
- LC_TIME
- Determine the format and contents of date and time strings
displayed in the lp banner page, if any.
- LPDEST
- Determine the destination. If the LPDEST environment
variable is not set, the PRINTER environment variable shall be
used. The -d dest option takes precedence over LPDEST
. Results are undefined when -d is not specified and
LPDEST contains a value that is not a valid destination name.
- NLSPATH
- Determine the location of message catalogs for the
processing of LC_MESSAGES .
- PRINTER
- Determine the output device or destination. If the
LPDEST and PRINTER environment variables are not set, an
unspecified output device is used. The -d dest option and
the LPDEST environment variable shall take precedence over
PRINTER . Results are undefined when -d is not specified,
LPDEST is unset, and PRINTER contains a value that is not a
valid device or destination name.
- TZ
- Determine the timezone used to calculate date and time
strings displayed in the lp banner page, if any. If TZ is
unset or null, an unspecified default timezone shall be used.
Default.
The
lp utility shall write a
request ID to the standard output,
unless
-s is specified. The format of the message is unspecified. The
request ID can be used on systems supporting the historical
cancel and
lpstat utilities.
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
None.
None.
The following exit values shall be returned:
- 0
- All input files were processed successfully.
- >0
- No output device was available, or an error occurred.
Default.
The following sections are informative.
The
pr and
fold utilities can be used to achieve reasonable
formatting for the implementation's default page size.
A conforming application can use one of the
file operands only with the
-c option or if the file is publicly readable and guaranteed to be
available at the time of printing. This is because
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 gives the implementation the freedom to
queue up the request for printing at some later time by a different process
that might not be able to access the file.
- 1.
- To print file file:
- 2.
- To print multiple files with headers:
The
lp utility was designed to be a basic version of a utility that is
already available in many historical implementations. The standard developers
considered that it should be implementable simply as:
after appropriate processing of options, if that is how the implementation chose
to do it and if exclusive access could be granted (so that two users did not
write to the device simultaneously). Although in the future the standard
developers may add other options to this utility, it should always be able to
execute with no options or operands and send the standard input to an
unspecified output device.
This volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 makes no representations
concerning the format of the printed output, except that it must be
"human-readable" and "non-volatile". Thus, writing by
default to a disk or tape drive or a display terminal would not qualify. (Such
destinations are not prohibited when
-d dest,
LPDEST , or
PRINTER are used, however.)
This volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 is worded such that a
"print job" consisting of multiple input files, possibly in multiple
copies, is guaranteed to print so that any one file is not intermixed with
another, but there is no statement that all the files or copies have to print
out together.
The
-c option may imply a spooling operation, but this is not required.
The utility can be implemented to wait until the printer is ready and then
wait until it is finished. Because of that, there is no attempt to define a
queuing mechanism (priorities, classes of output, and so on).
On some historical systems, the request ID reported on the STDOUT can be used to
later cancel or find the status of a request using utilities not defined in
this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001.
Although the historical System V
lp and BSD
lpr utilities have
provided similar functionality, they used different names for the environment
variable specifying the destination printer. Since the name of the utility
here is
lp,
LPDEST (used by the System V
lp utility) was
given precedence over
PRINTER (used by the BSD
lpr utility).
Since environments of users frequently contain one or the other environment
variable, the
lp utility is required to recognize both. If this was not
done, many applications would send output to unexpected output devices when
users moved from system to system.
Some have commented that
lp has far too little functionality to make it
worthwhile. Requests have proposed additional options or operands or both that
added functionality. The requests included:
- *
- Wording requiring the output to be
"hardcopy"
- *
- A requirement for multiple printers
- *
- Options for supporting various page-description
languages
Given that a compliant system is not required to even have a printer, placing
further restrictions upon the behavior of the printer is not useful. Since
hardcopy format is so application-dependent, it is difficult, if not
impossible, to select a reasonable subset of functionality that should be
required on all compliant systems.
The term
unspecified is used in this section in lieu of
implementation-defined as most known implementations would not be able
to make definitive statements in their conformance documents; the existence
and usage of printers is very dependent on how the system administrator
configures each individual system.
Since the default destination, device type, queuing mechanisms, and acceptable
forms of input are all unspecified, usage guidelines for what a conforming
application can do are as follows:
- *
- Use the command in a pipeline, or with -c, so that
there are no permission problems and the files can be safely deleted or
modified.
- *
- Limit output to text files of reasonable line lengths and
printable characters and include no device-specific formatting
information, such as a page description language. The meaning of
"reasonable" in this context can only be answered as a
quality-of-implementation issue, but it should be apparent from historical
usage patterns in the industry and the locale. The pr and
fold utilities can be used to achieve reasonable formatting for the
default page size of the implementation.
Alternatively, the application can arrange its installation in such a way that
it requires the system administrator or operator to provide the appropriate
information on
lp options and environment variable values.
At a minimum, having this utility in this volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 tells the industry that conforming
applications require a means to print output and provides at least a command
name and
LPDEST routing mechanism that can be used for discussions
between vendors, application writers, and users. The use of "should"
in the DESCRIPTION of
lp clearly shows the intent of the standard
developers, even if they cannot mandate that all systems (such as laptops)
have printers.
This volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 does not specify what the
ownership of the process performing the writing to the output device may be.
If
-c is not used, it is unspecified whether the process performing the
writing to the output device has permission to read
file if there are
any restrictions in place on who may read
file until after it is
printed. Also, if
-c is not used, the results of deleting
file
before it is printed are unspecified.
None.
mailx
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE
Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable
Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue
6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between
this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original
IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original
Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html
.
