[cups.bugs] [LOW] STR #1596: CUPS pstops writes %RBINumCopies: intoDSC header

[Helge Blischke]

"jsmeix.suse" wrote:
> 
> [STR New]
> 
> CUPS 1.1.23 pstops writes %RBINumCopies: into DSC header
> like for example into the DSC header of Mozilla/Firefox:
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> %!PS-Adobe-3.0
> %RBINumCopies: 1
> %%Pages: (atend)
> %%BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
> %%HiResBoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
> %%Creator: Mozilla PostScript module (rv:1.8.0.1/2006040900)
> %%DocumentData: Clean8Bit
> %%DocumentPaperSizes: Letter
> %%Orientation: Portrait
> %%PageOrder: Ascend
> %%EndComments
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> 
> According to my understanding of the DSC spec. this is not
> conformant because DSC spec. version 3.0 reads:
> On page 8:
> "DSC comments are specified by two percent characters"
> In section 4.1 "Prolog":
> "The header consists of DSC comments only"
> and I cannot find a DSC keyword "RBINumCopies" in the DSC spec.
> 
> In filter/pstops.c the comments indicate that RBINumCopies
> seems to be Apple specific.
> Perhaps there is only a typo in the line
>     puts("%RBINumCopies: 1");
> and it should be
>     puts("%%RBINumCopies: 1");
> to make it a conformant DSC comment?
> 
> The bug is so minor that there is no need to fix it for CUPS 1.1
> but only if it exists also in CUPS 1.2.
> 
> Link: http://www.cups.org/str.php?L1596
> Version: 1.1.23

Though not mentioned in the DSC spec (but mentioned as an example in one of Adobe's
technical notes (PostScript Language Document Comment Extensions for Page Layout #5644)), it has been
common use since about a decade to define application or vendor specific comments this way,
beginning with only one percent sign immediately followed by a 3 letter key. Well known examples
are the OPI 1.3 comments originally invented and defined by Aldus (%ALD...) or the 
comments defined by QuarkXpress (%QRK...) and even by Adobe (%ADO...). Somewhere (I don't remember where)
Adobe recommends application developers and/or vendors to have such comment keys registered at
Adobe.

Helge

-- 
Helge Blischke
Softwareentwicklung
SRZ Berlin | Firmengruppe besscom
http://www.srz.de