On Thu, 20 Mar 2003, der Mouse wrote:

> I don't know what CUPS does.  But our lpr, at least as of the manpage I
> quoted the version number of (which was current as of my last update),
> doesn't even _have_ explicit arguments for "this is text" or "this is
> PostScript", which is my actual beef with it.  (I can deal with
> guessing by default, but when the guess (a) is done with an
> undocumented algorithm and (b) cannot be overridden, it crosses the
> line into "broken" for me.)

Right. The real problem is that Postscript was dumped in with Text. We
(and everyone else) should have different formats (a la DVI, plot, etc.)
for each of them. If you wanted something treated as text, you set the,
"It's text" flag. If it's PS, use the, "It's PS" flag. Then lpr guessing
file type if you didn't say isn't a big deal. For the one case where it'll
get it wrong (it's PS but you want it dumped as text), just set the, "It's
text" flag.

The one problem with this is that lpr has burned through lots of letters,
and so we're now stuck supporting things like cifplot, ditroff and troff,
and the Benson Varian (whatever that was), and we don't have room for PS
and Text.

If we had this separation, then we could easily set enscript up as a
filter, and the right stuff happens. :-)

Take care,

Bill