CA Spool: Print AFP from JES2, EBCDIC from z/OS UNIX and ASCII from Solaris

[Anon Anon]

Hi,

Apologies for the basic question. We're new to CA Spool and are just about to implement it. I'm still a bit confused about how to configure a printer (node) that shall be used to print:

•   AFP print streams originally written to the JES2 spool
•   Line mode print data originally written to the JES spool
•   EBCDIC text sent via CA Spool's z/OS UNIX 'lp' command
•   ASCII text using standard UNIX 'lp' command from Solaris and Linux.

The "printer" shall be accessed by the same name, i.e. destination, from all of the above environments. It seems to be clear that I'll need TRANSFRM=A2PC on the NODE for the AFP (page mode) and line mode data streams. It confuses me what good A2PC would do to the other two print streams mentioned above. Do I need to define multiple nodes for this? If so, how to assign the different input sources to the different nodes.

I might be missing some basics about how CA Spool works on data it receives and on data it send on to printers. Appreciate any help with this.

Peter

[Carlos Filho]

Hi Peter,

My name is Carlos Mario Filho and I am part of the Customer Support group at CA Technologies for CA Spool. Are you running a conversion from another product to CA Spool?
Generally speaking you don't need to create additional nodes to be able to process all those different inputs. The same node can handle the AFP transformations and line mode data streams. If the sysout has PRMODE=LINE it won't trigger the transformation process and the data will be treated as plain text. You may need to pass some attribute on the lp command to indicate the type of data (ASCII or EBCDIC).

I suggest that you open a case with CA Support so that we can further discuss this subject.

Thank you,
Mario
 

[Anon Anon]

Hi Mario

Thanks for your answer.

You wrote that PRMODE=LINE would not trigger the transformation. But, LINE mode output coming from z/OS applications needs to be transformed using the supplied PAGEDEF and FORMDEF, doesn't it?

As for the "lp" output: This is comming from existing UNIX applications that today are printing to UNIX lpd. We want to abandon the UNIX lpd and replace it with CA Spool's lpd. This must be made transparent to the application. There is no way to change the application so that they would add additional parameters to the "lp" request.

But I understand that I won't need to define different nodes for the different source or print output. Every node will try to figure out what kind of data it is about to print and the invoke the required transformation. Is there any documentation about how this analysis is done?

Regards
Peter

[Carlos Filho]

Hi Peter,

You are right regarding LINE mode output that has PAGEDEF and FORMDEF attributes. The complete criteria for transforming or not a file can be found in the section "How the AFP Transformers Work" of the manuals CA Spool AFP Transformers Administration Guide and CA Spool Java Transformers Administration Guide (chapter 1 of each manual).

As to the Unix output, we would need to have a way to distinguish the EBCDIC from the ASCII formats. I suggest that you open an issue for a deeper discussion of this matter.

Thank you,

Mario