PRINT - ways to print and display files.

To display a file on the terminal:

     L file
     L file +ty
     P file file file ...

To send the display of the file into another file:

     L file >outfil
     P file file file ... >outfil

To print a file on the line printer:

     SLIST file file file... b="banner"
     SLIST x=index
     KLIST file file file... b="banner"
     KLIST x=index

There are several ways to display files on a terminal or print them on the line printer. This explain file is a brief introduction to the commands available for such purposes. Note that this introduction only describes the most elementary uses of these "printing" commands. For full details, see the individual explain files (e.g. "expl l", "expl slist", and so on).

L

The L command lists information about the given file. If the file is a text file, its contents are displayed on the terminal; if it is not a text file, L will attempt to display a description of the file's contents. (For example, if the given file is a freeze file, L will list the various elements which are frozen in the file.) If ">outfil" is specified, L's output will be sent to the specified output file. Otherwise, L's output is sent to the terminal. If "+ty" is specified, L will simply examine the specified file and tell what kind of file it is (e.g. text, a freeze file, a qstar file, and so on).

P

The P command is used to display text files in a "pretty" format. For example, it expands tab characters and prints escape sequences for any unprintable ASCII characters. One of the nicest features of P is that it will pause after 18 lines and will wait for the user to type in a carriage return before typing another 18 lines. In this way, CRT users do not have to worry about lines disappearing off the top of the screen before they have been read; P prints a "page" of text and then waits for you to finish reading.

If you specify an ">outfil", P sends its normal output to the file you name.

SLIST

This command is used to send a "simple listing" of a text file to the printer. Several files may be SLISTed at a time; this saves paper. The listing comes off the printer identified by your userid and the "banner" you specify in the "b=" field. If you omit the "b=", SLIST will use the name of the first file as its banner.

Instead of specifying files on the command line, you can put a list of the files you wish to SLIST in an "index" file and use the "x=index" option of SLIST. Thus if the file "lll" contains

file1
file2
file3

the command "slist x=lll" will SLIST the three given files. In this case, the banner used is the name of the index file (i.e. "lll").

Another popular SLIST option is "+Headings". When "+h" is specified on the command line, each page of output will be given a heading that tells the current date and time, your userid, and the name of the file being listed. Pages will be numbered at the bottom.

KLIST

KLIST is similar to SLIST except that it prints two columns of output per page instead of one. This effectively halves the amount of paper used in printing a listing. KLIST may be used to good advantage on text files that do not have more than 60 characters on any one line.

When you use SLIST or KLIST to send something to the line printer, your output is placed in a queue known as the "backdoor". Items in this queue are printed in the order that they are submitted; thus if there are a lot of listings ahead of your listing, it may take a while for yours to come off the printer. The BKDR command will tell you whether your listing(s) are still in the queue waiting to be printed. For example,

bkdr +all

shows everything that is waiting to be printed.