Kevin asks:

>I am looking for an intrinsic that I can call from a COBOL program
>to determine if a printer device exists.  We need to allow our users to
>enter a device name on a view form.  Does anyone know of such a beast?

Here are some ideas:

1. using hpcicommand: file x;dev=dev_name
   you will get an error if dev_name doesn't exist. But this doesn't
   tell you if its a printer device.

2. using hpcicommand: showdev dev_name > x
   open x and parse the results

3. use hpfopen or fopen to open a file on this device. If you get an
   error you can use fcheck to see if it was because the device doesn't
   exist. I don't know what happens if you fclose the file without writing
   anything. Worst case is you have an empty spool file.

Hope these help!


Duane Percox ([log in to unmask]  v/415.306.1608 f/415.365.2706)
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