🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <12757@netnews.upenn.edu> lau@kings.wharton.upenn.edu (Yan K. Lau) writes:
>What is the type of password according to the PostScript language standard?
>The reason I ask is that for LaserWriters, the type is a numeric.  However,
>I remember distinctly that for the DEC LN03R (DEC's PostScript Printer),
>the type of password was a string.  (I personally like a string for more
>variety.)  Naturally, code sent as num will get rejected when the printer
>is expecting a str.  So, what's the type?

The "exitserver" verb is not a standard part of the PostScript language,
even though it happens to exist in virtually all printer products to
date.  Since it is an `extension' to the language, its semantics are
not specified except in the manual for the printer that you buy.

However, only DEC printer products ship with anything other than zero
as the password.  I don't think you get a "typecheck", you just don't
exit the server loop ("invalidpassword" error, I think).

In truth, the incantation "serverdict begin <password> exitserver"
should itself be treated as a single operation, since none of
"serverdict", <password>, or "exitserver" is guaranteed to be there
(and are not, for example, in Display PostScript implementations).

But for the most part, to hack around this feature or that feature,
just use "0".  If you're shipping a product, you probably should not use
it at all.  If you have a DEC product, you already have learned, the
hard way, that your password is (LN03R) or (LPS40) or whatever.

Glenn Reid
Adobe Systems