Re: Large Spool Files

Dear Eric,

I forwarded your printing question to Rodney Johnson at IBM who is the
manager of the spooling function within OS/400. He typically answers
printing related questions in the usenet newsgroup comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc
but he doesn't read midrange-l.

His answer to your question is appended below.

HTH

Best Regards,

/Paul
--
Paul Tykodi
Director, Printer Connectivity Product Management
LCI-Intermate US, Inc.

p: 603.431.0606 x115
f: 603.436.6432
paul@intermate-us.com
www.intermate.com

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Rodney Johnson [mailto:rodaj@us.ibm.com]
>Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 10:58 AM
>To: Paul Tykodi
>Subject: Re: FW: Large Spool files - More Info
>
>Paul, What the customer wants to do is possible programmatically, but isn't
>going to be trivial.
>
>The message handler APIs can be used to retrieve and reply to messages.
>The problem is detecting that a job is in message wait for the particular
>condition (reached maximum records).  Another problem is determining the
>correct spooled file to hold.  This can be especially difficult if multiple
>spooled files are in OPN status.

>A polling program would need to be created to list all active jobs and
>check for ones in MSGW.  Then one would need to get a list of messages
>from that job's message queue (joblog).  If the last message was the max.
>records condition, one could then list the spooled files for that job.  If
>there is only one spooled file in OPN status, it is probably safe to assume
>that is the spooled file that needs to be held.  At this point a HLDSPLF
>could be issued.  If there are multiple spooled files in OPN status, then
>more investigation would be required, such as retrieving the attributes of
>each OPN spooled file and determine if the printer file of the spooled file
>matches the message and/or if the number of records written to the spooled
>file matches the maximum for the printer file, etc.
>
>Once the spooled file has been held, then the message could be replied to
>with NOMAX using a message handler API.
>
>Since a system could have many jobs active, I would recommend not polling
>continuously, but instead poll every so many minutes (what ever is an
>acceptable delay vs. system performance).  This naturally is going to be up
>to the customer.  The customer also may have specific jobs that may want
>"exempt" from these particular actions.  Again more programming involved.
>
>I believe that Help Systems' Robot product may have some capabilities in
>this area.  Although the request was rather specific and may not be a
>feature of the Help Systems' product.
>
>Regards,
>Rodney A. Johnson
>rodaj@us.ibm.com
>AS/400 Spool
>(507) 253-7925
>t/l 553-7925
>
>>From: "Eric Wolf" <eric_a_wolf@hotmail.com>
>>To: midrange-l@midrange.com
>>Subject: Re: Large Spool Files
>>Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2002 13:08:57 -0800
>>Reply-To: midrange-l@midrange.com
>>
>>We are trying to put the spool file on hold but answer the NOMAX message
at
>>the same time.  The system reply list only answers the message.
>>
>>Thanks...
>>Eric A. Wolf