My own spooling program?

[janusz.prusaczyk@xxxxxx]

Would it be difficult to write a program monitoring OUTQ, getting text from
spool files and changing their status based on spool name and USRDTA.

To be clear, I would like to write something which would work like this:

1. User prints something, as he/she always does
2. Spool enters OUTQ
3. My program gets notified about new spool
4. My program checks spool name and user data
5. My program gets text from spool file
6. {My program sends this text through network to different Perl program,
notifying it about spool name and USRDTA} -OR- {writes this to IFS text file
creating unique filename from spool name and USRDTA, IFS file is monitored
by my Perl program} -OR- {RPG sends printer control commands to a printer
through CA printer session [not network printer with own IP address]}
7. My Perl program does watever I want with received data, in this
particular example converts it to RTF and prints.

I do not know how:

a. Get notified about new spool in OUTQ
b. Get spool text (I know there is some API for this, someone told me this
earlier on MIDRANGE-L) and change spool attributes (RDY -> SAV)
c. Write to network socket in RPG
d. Send cotrol commands (eg. PCL) to printer defined in Client Access
printer session

My questions are:

 - Is it rather complicated to accomplish? (in this case I'll give up this
time)
 - If you think it can be done by begginer, how can I start, and what should
I read?
 - Do not be offended as RPG400-L members, but is there a way to do all this
through network using some kind of Client Access OLE objects? I understand
usually you do not use them in Perl, but some VB example would do - I will
translate...
 - Do I try to do it wrong way?

Best regards,
David

***************************
  Janusz David Prusaczyk
  janusz.prusaczyk@big.pl
  tel. +48 (22) 657 57 48
***************************
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