JPH03141449A - Output holding job controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the adverse influences due to an output holding job staying continuously in an auxiliary storage by monitoring the size of an idle area of the auxiliary storage in a prescribed cycle and compressing the execution result of the output holding job having a long staying time to reduce the size of a storage area occupied by the job execution result. CONSTITUTION:The size of an idle area of an auxiliary storage 3 is monitores (6) in a prescribed cycle. If the short of the area size is decided by the monitoring, the execution result of an output holding job having a long staying time is compressed (8). Then the size of a storage area of the storage 3 occupied by the job is reduced. As a result, the size of a usable area of the storage 3 is increased and the output of a new job can be held. When an output request is given to an output held job, the compressed job execution result is expanded (9) to its original state and outputted. Thus it is possible to prevent the adverse influences due to an output holding job staying continuously in the storage 3 without causing the load to an operator, etc.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention stores job output information related to the output of the job in a storage area of an auxiliary storage device before outputting the job execution result, and stores the job output information as needed. The present invention relates to an output pending job management device in a computer system that can suspend the output of the job execution results while being stored in the auxiliary storage device until a certain point in time.

[Conventional technology]

Generally, in this type of computer system, if a situation occurs where a user does not issue an output request for a long time, information related to output pending jobs will remain in the storage area of the auxiliary storage device for system output. ,
New job execution cannot be started due to insufficient storage space.
It also causes various problems such as abnormal termination of the job being executed. For this reason, conventional computer systems have (
1) A mechanism for deleting output pending jobs in response to a deletion operation from the user who submitted the job.

(2) A mechanism that enables an operator to monitor the retention status of output pending jobs, save output pending jobs with a long retention time to other external storage devices such as a magnetic tape device, and vice versa.

was set up.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) As described above, conventional computer systems have mechanisms such as (1) and (21) described above in order to prevent various adverse effects caused by delays in execution of output pending jobs. However, there were the following problems:

■ There is no problem if the user deletes the output-held job as soon as it is no longer needed, but if the user is slow to delete or forgets to delete the output-held job, the output-held job may become stuck. It will remain as it is.

■ In order to prevent the storage area of the auxiliary storage device from being used up by output-holding jobs, the operator must monitor the status of output-holding jobs at appropriate time intervals and, if necessary, It is necessary to save and restore jobs to an external storage device, which increases the operator's incidental work. Furthermore, if the operator's judgment and operation are delayed, it is impossible to prevent problems caused by the output pending jobs.

The present invention solves these conventional problems, and its purpose is to prevent the harmful effects caused by output pending jobs remaining in the auxiliary storage device without placing a burden on users or operators. It's about doing.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention stores job output information related to the output of the job in a storage area of an auxiliary storage device before outputting the job execution result,
An output pending job management device in a computer system capable of holding the output of the job execution result stored in the auxiliary storage device until a necessary point in time is configured to monitor the size of the free space of the auxiliary storage device at a predetermined cycle. and means for compressing a job execution result related to an output pending job with a long retention time determined by the job output information according to a monitoring result to reduce the size of a storage area of the auxiliary storage device occupied by the job. , means for decompressing the compressed job execution result in response to an output request for the compressed job execution result.

[Effect]

In the output pending job management device of the present invention, the size of the free space of the auxiliary storage device is monitored at a predetermined cycle, and when a monitoring result indicating that the free space is insufficient is obtained, the size of the free space of the auxiliary storage device is monitored. The job execution result related to the output pending job is compressed, and the size of the storage area of the auxiliary storage device occupied by the job is reduced. As a result, the size of the usable area of the auxiliary storage device increases, making it possible to suspend the output of new jobs.

When an output request is issued for a job whose output has been put on hold, the compressed job execution result is expanded to its original state and output.

〔Example〕

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a data processing device, 3 is an auxiliary storage device for system output connected to the data processing device 1,
This auxiliary storage device 3 stores job output information and job execution results related to output pending jobs. In the data processing device 1, there is provided a system output mechanism 2 that constitutes the output pending job management device of the present invention. This system output mechanism 2 is realized, for example, by a control program that is stored in a main storage device constituting the data processing device 1 and manages the entire output job. In this embodiment, the system output mechanism 2 includes a recording section 42, a selection section 5. Monitoring unit 61 determining unit 7. Compression section 8 and expansion section 9
has been established. Each has the following functions.

○Recording unit 4 Has a function of storing job output information related to a job on the auxiliary storage device 3 at the end of execution of a job designated for output suspension. This job output information includes location information such as where on the auxiliary storage device 3 the job execution result related to the job is stored, the time when the output was put on hold, the capacity of the output hold job, for example, the size of the job execution result, etc. is included.

○ Monitoring unit 6 Monitors the size of the free space in the auxiliary storage device 3 at a predetermined cycle, and if the free space in the auxiliary storage device 3 is significantly reduced due to a large number of pending output jobs, the selection unit 5
It has the ability to launch.

Selection unit 5 This unit has a function of sequentially checking the job output information of the output pending jobs stored in the auxiliary storage device 3 and selecting the output pending job with the longest retention time.

O determination unit 7 has a function of determining whether or not the retention time of the output pending job selected by the selection unit 5 is longer than the permissible time specified by the system, and if it is longer, activating the compression unit 8.

Compression unit 8 Compresses the job execution result of the output pending job whose retention time is determined to be longer than the allowable time by the determination unit 7, and compresses the size of the storage area of the auxiliary storage device 3 occupied by the job execution result. It has the function of reducing the size of the image. Note that any method among various methods known as data compression techniques can be used to compress the job execution results.

Decompression unit 9 In response to an output request for the compressed job execution result stored in the auxiliary storage device 3, this unit has a function of decompressing the compressed job execution result and returning it to its original state.

Next, the operation of this embodiment configured as described above will be explained.

The system output mechanism 2 shown in FIG. 1 stores the job execution results in the storage area of the auxiliary storage device 3, and also stores the job output information related to the job by the recording unit 4 when the execution of the job specified to be output pending is completed. is stored in a predetermined storage area of the auxiliary storage device 3. In addition, in parallel with these processes, the monitoring section 61, the selection section 52, the judgment section 7. This is executed by the compression unit 8 at predetermined intervals.

First, when a predetermined cycle defined by the system arrives,
The monitoring unit 6 is activated. The monitoring unit 6 checks the current free space size of the auxiliary storage device 3 that can be used to store the job execution results of the new output pending job (Sl),
It is determined whether or not the size of the free area has decreased to the extent that a large number of pending output jobs are pending and the size of the free area is below a value defined by the system (S2). Then, if the size of the free area has decreased below the dark value, the selection unit 5 is activated, and if not, the process of FIG. 2 is ended and the arrival of the next cycle is awaited.

When activated, the selection unit 5 determines the retention time of each output pending job from the pending time and current time in the job output information regarding each output pending job stored in a predetermined storage area of the auxiliary storage device W3. , then selects the output pending job that has been held on hold for the longest time among them, and notifies the determination unit 7 of the selected output pending job and its retention time (S3
).

The determining unit 7 compares the passed retention time with the permissible time specified by the system, and determines whether or not the permissible time has been exceeded (S4). If there is an output pending job, the compression section 8 is notified of this and requests compression processing, and if not, the processing shown in FIG. 2 is terminated.

The compression unit 8 determines where in the auxiliary storage device 3 the job execution result of the output pending job notified by the determination unit 7 is stored, by checking the location corresponding to the job stored in a predetermined storage area of the auxiliary storage device 3. Check the position information in the job output information, compress the job execution result stored at that location, and reduce the size of the storage area of the auxiliary storage device 3 occupied by the job execution result (S5). . At the same time, this fact is recorded in the job output information related to the compressed job.This completes the processing for the current cycle and waits for the arrival of the next cycle.

As the above-mentioned processing is performed at predetermined intervals, the free space in the auxiliary storage device 3 decreases significantly, and when it decreases, compression processing is performed in the order of pending output jobs with the longest retention time. A free space with a size corresponding to the threshold value set is secured.

Next, an explanation will be given of the operation when an output operation is performed on a job whose output is on hold.

The system output mechanism 2 activates the decompression unit 9 when an output operation is performed on a job whose output is on hold. The decompression unit 9 first reads job output information related to the job requested for output from the auxiliary storage device 3 and checks whether compression processing has been performed. Then, if compression processing is not performed, it is determined that the job execution result can be output as is, and in this case, the system output mechanism 2
outputs the job execution result to an external printer device (not shown) in the same way as in the conventional case. On the other hand, if compression processing has been performed, the decompression unit 9 recognizes the location of the job execution result to be decompressed from the job output information related to the job, performs decompression processing on the job execution result, and restores the original file. return to the state of

The system output mechanism 2 outputs it to an external printer device or the like.

Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described above, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various other additions and changes are possible. For example, if the free space in the auxiliary storage device 3 has decreased significantly and there is no pending output job with a retention time exceeding the allowable time, compression processing is applied to the pending output job with the longest retention time. Also good.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, when a situation such as a significant decrease in the free space of the auxiliary storage device for system output occurs, outputs that have been left pending for a long time are automatically The job execution results related to the job are compressed and the size of the storage area of the auxiliary storage device that they occupied is reduced, so the free space is increased and output pending jobs can be processed without putting a burden on users or operators. It is possible to prevent harmful effects caused by the data remaining in the auxiliary storage device. In addition, the auxiliary storage device can be used effectively, and output pending jobs with a long retention time can also be saved in the auxiliary storage device, which eliminates the need for saving to an external storage device like in the past.

Restoration operations are no longer necessary, further reducing the operator's work.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart of processing in an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1... Data processing device 2... System output a structure 3... Auxiliary storage device 4... Recording section 5... Selection section 6... Monitoring section 7... Judgment section 8... Compression section 9... Expansion section 2 diagram of the processing details of the embodiment

Claims (1)

[Claims] Prior to outputting a job execution result, job output information related to the output of the job is stored in a storage area of an auxiliary storage device, and the job execution result is stored in the auxiliary storage device until a necessary point. In a computer system that can hold output while stored in the auxiliary storage device, the size of the free space of the auxiliary storage device is monitored at a predetermined period, and outputs with a long retention time determined by the job output information are determined according to the monitoring results. means for compressing a job execution result related to a pending job to reduce the size of a storage area of the auxiliary storage device occupied by the job; An output pending job management device comprising means for decompressing job execution results.