[cups] Monitoring concurrent print jobs

[Dave Close]

I have a client using CUPS from an application which is licensed
according to the number of concurrent print jobs. I think he's paid
for more licenses than he actually needs. But trying to discover the
actual number of concurrently active jobs (to any printer) has me
stymied. The CUPS log files don't seem to provide enough information.

It appears that most or all jobs start with a "Create-Job" entry in
cups/access_log. Most or all also seem to end with a "Send-Document"
entry. But looking through several months of logs, those entries
don't balance. I also see "Cancel-Job" entries that don't reference
a printer, leaving me wondering. Sometimes I see several consecutive
"Cancel-Job" entries where, near as I can tell, there should be no
active jobs.

Is there a better way to get this information besides parsing the logs?
-- 
         Dave Close, Compata, Irvine CA       +1 714 434 7359
       dave at compata.com              dhclose at alumni.caltech.edu
  "The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can
   be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues."
                                      -- Elizabeth Taylor