Name

lqf − general purpose letter quality filter

Syntax

/usr/lib/lpdfilters/lqf [−c] [−nlogin] [−hhost] [−wwidth] [−lnum] [−iindent]  [accounting file]

Description

The lqf filter is used to filter text data destined for a letter quality printer, specifically the lqp02, but will work with any impact printer: LP25, LP26, LP27, LA50, LA75, LA100, LA120, LA210, and LG01. The filter allows escape characters and control sequences to pass through to the printer. The filter handles the device dependencies of the printers and performs accounting functions. Accounting records are written to the file specified by the af field in /etc/printcap at the time of completion for each job.

The filter can handle plain ASCII files and files that have been preprocessed by nroff. However, it ignores escape sequences requesting superscripting and subscripting.

The lqf filter can be the specified filter in both the of and the if fields in the /etc/printcap file.  For further information, see printcap 5 . When both fields are specified, the of filter is used only to print the banner page.  It is then stopped to allow the if filter access to the printer. The if filter maintains accounting information. 

If the of field is the only one specified, the filter is used to print the banner page.  It is then stopped and restarted.  This allows the of filter to be used to maintain accounting information. 

If the if field is the only one specified, the banner page will be sent directly to the printer. This is not a problem for most impact printers.  For a more detailed discussion on filters see the “Line Printer Spooler Manual” in The Supplementary Documents. 

Options

The arguments passed to the filter depend on its use.  The of filter is called with the following arguments:

lqf −wwidth −llength
The width and length values come from the pw and pl fields in the /etc/printcap database. The if (or restarted of) filter is passed the following arguments:

lqf −c −nlogin −hhost −wwidth −lnum −iindent  accounting file

The −c flag is optional, and supplied only when control characters are to be printed, that is, when the −l option of lpr(1) is used to print the file.  The −w and −l arguments are the same as for the of filter. However, they may have different values if the −w or −z options of pr() were used to print the file.  The −n and −h arguments specify the login name and host name of the job owner.  These arguments are used to record accounting information. The −i option specifies the amount of indentation to be used. The last argument is the name of the accounting file specified from the af field in the /etc/printcap database.

Diagnostics

The lf field (default "/dev/null") in the /etc/printcap database specifies error logging file name.

Files

/etc/printcap Printer Capabilities Database

/dev/lp?

See Also

lpr(1), pr(1), printcap(5), lpd(8), MAKEDEV(8), pac(8)
Line Printer Spooler Manual