🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1dn7brINNdjq@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Nov9.223322.27775@cs.wayne.edu>, nar@usha.cs.wayne.edu  
(Nagarajan Ramesh) writes:
	    **  I have a large ps file that is too large for my
	    **  Apple laser writer.  Even a symbollic link does
	    **  not work.  Can anybody tell me how I can print this
	    **  file?.

	*  Perhaps you'd tell us what you mean by "too large for my
	*  Apple laser writer"? What error messages do you get when
	*  you try to print it?  Why did you think a symbolic link
	*  would make the slightest difference?

    *  Well, the memory on my printer is limited to 300000 bytes.
    *  Therefore, when I send a postscript file from my workstation
    *  to my printer, there is not enough room to copy the whole
    *  file onto it. The error message I get is

	lpr: temp.ps: copy file is too large

    *  One could use a symbollic link (lpr with the -s option) on
    *  SUN OS, wherein instead of copying the file, a link is
    *  created and therefore the printer memory is not a limit -
    *  atleast in theory.  But again, apparently there is a limit
    *  even for this kind of operation. So, then my question is
    *  - how do I print the large postscript file?.

The message about  copy file too large  has nothing whatsoever to
do with the amount of memory or other resources available to your
printer.  This message comes from the print spooler, which can be
on a machine physically separate in both space and time from the
machine to which the printer is connected and from the time when
the job will be printed (sometimes days or weeks later if you're
using a UNIX spooler).

The message indicates that the print job is physically larger than
the defined number of bytes that the spooler is willing to copy
into the local spool area.

The  -s  option is of use in precisely one circumstance:  if you
are printing a real file (not the output of a pipe) to a printer
that is physically connected to the machine from which you are
performing the printing.  The  -s  option makes a symbolic link
instead of copying the print file to the spool directory.  In all
other cases, such as the printer being on a remote host, or the
print ``file'' being the result of something piped to lpr or lp,
the spooler makes a physical copy of the print job in the local
spool directory.

The default maximum file size is one megabyte.  You can change this
by changing the  /ect/printcap  file on the local machine so that
the mx field reads  mx#0  (0 means unlimited in this case).   This
of course refers to the BSD spooler.  I'm sure that SVR4 has a way
to make this even more complicated.

As to the questioning of Mister Ramesh's grasp of ``Computer
Science'' -- all this stuff about spooler limits, printcaps,
symbolic links -- none of this is ``computer science''.  It's
black magic and a miracle you ever get anything printed at all
on UNIX systems.

	........  Henry