Ok, here's a new-and-improved test version (7.0.1770.5) which implements the test (for an attempt to delete a collection element while iterating the collection) at a lower level, where it won't be fooled by code like the example above. But note that it also won't be fooled by my suggested workaround of using another variable in place of the .key($$i) or .NULL references.

It still issues that same error 67 (?Invalid collection operation or reference), which perhaps isn't as clear and precise as it could be (as opposed to, say, "?Illegal attempt to delete an element of collection during iteration"), but I wasn't sure it was worth christening a new error code. For now, let me just repeat that this is a limitation of the underlying Standard Template Library implementation of collections, not an ASB issue per se.

ash70notes.txt
ash-7.0.1770.5-w32-upd.zip
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ash-7.0.1770.5-d12-x86_64-upd.tz

Yes, that's correct. And in fact, if a foreground job loses its terminal connection, it will revert to a background job (until it terminates based on variations of the -h command line switch), changing its prefix from TSK to TAS.

Well that is a good analogy - but why goto the library when you can just get everything online?! Ok well enuf beating this horse glad Jorge got his utility and Jack lives to ride another day

Hey Jorge - thanks for asking. We are all well thanks albeit right now in a very serious wildfire emergency here. Hoping to not have to evacuate. Still working and supporting our customer base.

The 7.0.1770.4 update should resolve this issue...

ash-7.0.1770.4-el7-upd.tz
ash-7.0.1770.4-el7-x86_64-upd.tz
ash-7.0.1770.4-d12-x86_64-upd.tz
ash70notes.txt

Ok, the issue has now been correctly patched into these Linux versions...

ash-7.0.1770.4-el7-upd.tz
ash-7.0.1770.4-el7-x86_64-upd.tz
ash-7.0.1770.4-d12-x86_64-upd.tz
ash70notes.txt

Installing the printer by just adding a set of entries like your example to the printers.conf does succeed in creating the printer without a PPD file. But that printer had the same behavior as before. So it's not clear that the PPD is doing anything.

While playing with this, at some point I realized that my lpr command was actually just a link to lp, which has somewhat different behavior (and doesn't like the -# switch for copies). So I unlinked it and then installed cups-bsd which includes its own lpr....

That still didn't fix the CRLF issue. I tried adjusting the default CUPS options for the printer, i.e. setting Characters to send for a New Line option to either Carriage Return and Line Feed (CR + LF) (DOS/Windows style) or Line Feed (LF) only (Unix/Linux style) but that didn't seem to make any difference either.

For now I'm ok with either relying on the physical printer's own setup options to handle the LF/CRLF issue (which I'm guessing may be what you've done), or just activating the CRLF option in A-Shell. Or creating a print filter.

But one critical detail that your example revealed: despite the documentation suggesting that the lpr -l switch is equivalent to the -o raw switch, with lpr -l the PCL commands work, while in -o raw, they didn't.

So for anyone struggling with CUPS under Debian, the recipe that worked for me is:

• Use the /localhost:631 web interface to add the printer. Use the socket://ipaddr or socket://ipaddr:9100 interface. Select Generic as the make, and Generic Text-Only as the model. (Alternatively, just create a <printer>...</printer> definition text file (similar to the one John listed above) and add it manually to your /etc/cups/printers.conf file. (You might have to restart CUPS for it to recognize a printer added that way.)
• In the printer init file, use DEVICE = ptrname -l
• Either configure the printer to convert LF to CRLF, or add the OPTIONS=CRLF option to the miame.ini file.

With that you can embed PCL codes in the print files. Note that if you are converting from a dot matrix printer to laser, you may need to create an A-Shell print filter SBX to convert from the dot matrix commands to PCL equivalents. If so you may find the OKI2PCL module in the SOSLIB helpful, either as is, or as a starting point for your own converter.

If your print command doesn't generate an error but also doesn't print, check the OPR:SPOOL.LOG file, which is where you'll see the actual lpr command line and any error messages.

Just don't forget the napkins - it tends to leave your fingers very sticky!

It is working now. Thanks

This quote from the article certainly seems applicable to A-Shell Basic...

Thanks Jorge!