OpenEuphoria

Re: (confused noob) How do I make the EUINC variable in XP?

• Posted by don cole <doncole at pacb?ll.ne?> Sep 18, 2007
• 826 views

ChrisBurch2 wrote:
> 
> don cole wrote:
> > 
> > Uhhh I think we lost that guy.
> > 
> > Interesting discussion though. 
> > 
> > With '95, '98, 2000 and XP. when ever I had a problem or some thing happened
> > that I didn't 
> > understand, I would restart the computer. This usually fixed whatever. Not
> > always.
> > 
> > On that subject I was wondering if anyone could help me.
> > 
> > What I would like to know is, under XP can anybody run mydata.ex, eprint.ex
> > (both in Euphoria
> > download/samples) or pbook.ex (in the archives) and get it to print? Or not
> > get it to print.
> > 
> > Is it that the task simply cannot be done under XP?
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Don Cole
> 
> Hi
> 
> My take on this.
> 
> Most dos programs will do something like
> 
> lpr textfile.txt
> 
> or 
> 
> copy textfile.txt prn1
> 
> or 
> 
> open("prn", "w")
> 
> or similar, in other words writing directly to the serial or parallell printer
> port.
> 
> Windows xp won't allow this. It thinks you are an evil or nasty person if
> you try to write directly to its hardware, and it wants to control your life
> (or at least your printing habits)
> 
> Somewhere, and I even think there's a wrapper here, there are hooks within
> the windows api, that take your printout, and then send it off to the various
> ports,
> or even the network now.
> 
> I think the trick would be to set your dos program to send its output to a
> file,
> with another windows program to lookout for these files, contantly running,
> so that its this helper program that prints the file. It then wipes out your
> printed file, ready for the next one.
> 
> This program should be writable in eu. I'm not going to do it - I don't need
> it. This type of program is also known as a spooler - there may already be
> stuff available out there that does this sort of thing.
> 
> The problem arises with the dos programs - can you rewrite them to put the
> output to a file, or is there an option to 'print' to a file?
> 
> Here is what a quick search threw up, which offers some more possibilities.
> 
> <a
> href="http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=dos+printing+in+xp&btnG=Google+Search">http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=dos+printing+in+xp&btnG=Google+Search</a>
> 
> Hope this is a helpful pointer. Best of luck.

Hello ChrisBurch2,

    Actually your idea works. 


I just changed 

fp=open("PNT","w")

to

fp=open("pntTemp.txt","w")

I have to close the DOS program before I can print it in Windows.
But that's ok I can work out the details later. For now I just have to print the
d*** thing.

Thank you.

Don Cole