environment variable PRINTER readonly in Filters?

[Michael Sweet]

Andreas Bohne-Lang wrote:
> OK - in general I would like to ask if the environment variable is
> 'readonly' for CUPS filters? It would be nice if the cups main
> routine could reload the PRINTER variable and set it to the value the
> filter changed. One example was 'short job queue'.

Environment variables are local to the process - you can't pass them
back up to the parent, they can only be inherited by a child process.

> At the moment I am working on a routine that checks the toner on the
> destination printer before printing (by
> SNMPv2-SMI::mib-2.43.11.1.1.9.1.1)  and it would be nice if I could
> redirect the job to another printer by changing the variable if the
> toner is less.

The only thing you can do is send a CUPS-Move-Job request, however
that won't work while the job is in the processing state.

Another thing you can do is setup a class - then the backend can check
the toner levels and exit with status 1 to get the job printed on the
next device in the class.

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products           mike at easysw dot com
Internet Printing and Document Software          http://www.easysw.com