[cups-devel] Need information of replacing PPD API to JobTicket

[Michael Sweet]

Prasanta,

> On May 29, 2017, at 2:25 AM, My Sadhukhan <psadhukhan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Can cups library maintainers please help me out with this
> 
> 1. Will ppdOpenFile, ppdClose, ppdFindOption, ppdPageSize APIs be available
> in future version of CUPS.
>    I guess the deprecation was announced around cups 1.6 timeframe and now
> we have cups 2.2. Till which version of CUPS we can expect these APIs to be
> around?

The writing was on the wall starting in CUPS 1.4 with its focus on IPP Everywhere support.  CUPS 1.5 moved all of the PPD API definitions to ppd.h and required a separate include of cups/ppd.h, and CUPS 1.6 marked the PPD APIs as deprecated - that was 5 years ago.

I had high hopes of removing the PPD API in CUPS 2.0, but there were still too many legacy applications and drivers using them at the time.  We revisit the decision with every major and minor release so the next chance for removal is CUPS 2.3/3.0.

I've also been maintaining (in parallel) the PWG's IPP Sample Code repository, which includes a configurable IPP server and client library (the CUPS library) but no PPD API or driver support.  While the focus of this is on prototyping new services and standards for the PWG, it also serves as a testbed for how we can make a better, leaner printing stack in general.

Almost every printer sold since 2010 supports IPP and works with the IPP Everywhere "driver" in CUPS, and the push in the PWG (and at Apple) has been to ensure that IPP can support all of the major/typical printer driver functionality with the goal of eliminating vendor printer drivers.

> 2. Can I get a link to JobTicket API list(s)?

A new CUPS programming manual that focuses on the new APIs was posted to the CUPS web site last month in time for the 2017 printing summit and is available here:

    https://www.cups.org/doc/cupspm.epub
    https://www.cups.org/doc/cupspm.html

I'll make a wider announcement when we release CUPS 2.2.4 (soonish), and the new manual is still going through editorial changes and getting more examples...

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Michael Sweet, Senior Printing System Engineer