Create a new dynamic-temporary process

[simy8891]

Hi guys,

this one's gonna be difficult to explain .

First of all, the problem, perhaps you have a better solution:

I want to watch out, in a loop, for any .txt file in a folder, in case it's found, it needs to read some data out of it (I'm not interested in this, I know how to work that out) and send a single or a number of labels to a printer. Now, I don't want the process to stop looking for a new .txt file, but I want to send the print job with a different process. I guess Run will do. Problem here is: if somebody send a different job at about the same time to the same printer, it might get tricky and actually print, for instance: 20 labels for the first user, 3 for the second, 5 for the first and then 10 for the second user again.

What if I create instead a temporary process for the given printer? Is that possible? For instance:

User 1 sends 100 labels on printer 1

User 2 sends 20 labels on printer 2

User 3 sends 30 labels on printer 1

Script, as soon as it finds User 1's .txt file, will create a temporary process for it, for instance called printer 1, but won't wait for it. It'll start elaborating User 2's txt file and initiate a new process (printer 2), then go back to one, this time, if process 1 exists, it won't start it again but will leave the file as it is, go back to the loop, and check again later.

I'm really sorry for the bad explanation, english's not my first language but I wouldn't be able to explain it that well in my native's

Cheers!

[water]

Isn't a spooler the better/easier option?

[simy8891]

Not really since I'm sending zpl files via netcat. Couldn't find a better way yet. How would implement the spooler?

Ta

[water]

I'm not very expirienced in this area. But I'm sure Google will help

If you need to serialize your script I would do the following:

Store the ProcessID returned by run in a variable (one for each printer).

When a new text file arrives check if the printers variable has been set. If true check if the process still exists. If True wait until the process doesn't exist any more and then process the print file.

[jchd]

Search for "print jobs".

[simy8891]

Print Jobs won't work. Neither a spool will.

Problem is: I'm not sending a single job, that's be easy since the printer itself will work that out. I'm sending each label as a separate file which mean 100 files for 100 labels.

Coming back to the first request: what's the best way to create a temporary process? I was thinking to create a separate .exe file which will only handle the printing part of the script. Can that be called with a specific process name or is there a way to rename it while running? Basically it can create a new process for each different printer and if the process already exists, skips it.

[jchd]

Print Jobs won't work. Neither a spool will.

Problem is: I'm not sending a single job, that's be easy since the printer itself will work that out. I'm sending each label as a separate file which mean 100 files for 100 labels.

From what I can understand (i.e. not all) from MSDN about printing, a job can include printing of a number of documents. That could solve the grouping problem in the OP. Googling a little brought some hints like this one.

[simy8891]

It won't work: imagine user A sending a number of jobs whilst user B has already sent another few.. it'll create just a number of files which I can't group. Isn't really there a way to just start a process witb a specific name? If not I will probably go for the ugly solution (if it works..): have a print.exe which gets copied with a different name (printer ip address or name for instance) and then started with the necessary paramenters.