JPH04357068A - Printing control apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide the title apparatus conserving printing paper at the time of the debugging of printing data and capable of shortening a test time. CONSTITUTION:A printing condition data register is provided to a printing control apparatus and a printing condition indicating printing processing is set corresponding to the presence of a data error. When the data error is detected at the time when printing data is edited to be developed on a dot pattern, a data injustice flag is set to a page buffer 6 in order to store the presence of the data error in a page. When the development of the data of one page on a page memory 10 is completed, it is judged that the data of the page memory 10 is printed or not printed on the basis of the combination of the content of the printing condition control data register and the data injustic flag to issue a printing command to a printer 12.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

[Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a printing control device.
In particular, the present invention relates to a print control device that controls a printer used as an output device of an information processing system, and which minimizes the amount of printing paper consumed during testing.

0002

[Prior Art] Conventionally, in a print control device that receives print data from a host device, develops it into a print format, and performs print control to send it to a printer, when a data error in the print data is detected, the error occurs. are ignored or processed incorrectly, resulting in incorrect printing. In contrast, for example, as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 62-235631,
There is a proposal that when a data error is detected, the error details or a specific mark are printed at the position where the data error occurred. According to this proposal, when a data error in print data is detected, the error details or a specific mark are printed at the location of the error, so that the occurrence of the error can be easily recognized.

0003

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] When testing print data, for example, if a method is used to detect errors in the print data and print the errors, as in the above-mentioned conventional technology, , verifying print results, and correcting data errors will be repeated. however,
When testing a large amount of print data, printing, verifying print results, and correcting data errors are performed repeatedly.
Normal pages will be output on printing paper many times until there are no data errors in all print data. Therefore, there is a problem that a large amount of paper is used for unnecessary printing processing, which is very uneconomical. Further, there is a problem in that it takes a long time to test print data due to wasteful printing processing.

[0004] An object of the present invention is to provide a print control device that outputs only pages with data errors to a printer and prints them, and suppresses output of pages without data errors to the printer and does not print them. It is in.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a print control device that eliminates the time required to print unnecessary pages and reduces test time.

[0006]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the printing control device of the present invention includes a printing condition control information register that sets printing conditions for instructing printing processing depending on the presence or absence of data errors, and An error detection means that sets a data invalid flag indicating a data error on the corresponding page in a page buffer when a data error is detected when printing data sent from the device is edited and developed into a dot pattern, and printing condition control information. The present invention is characterized in that it includes a print control means that sends a print instruction to the printer to perform print processing based on a combination of the contents of print conditions in the register and a data fraud flag.

[0007]

[Operation] In the print control device of the present invention, first, before printing, it is necessary to decide whether to print a page with a data error or a normal page without a data error, and whether to print a page with a data error or not. The printing conditions that instruct whether to print first are set in the printing condition control information register. When the error detection means detects a data error when editing the print data sent from the host device and developing it into a dot pattern, the error detection means memorizes that there is a data error on the page concerned. In order to preserve the data, a data invalid flag is set in the page buffer, which is provided for each page and indicates a data error in the page. When all of the print data for one page has been developed into a dot pattern, the print control means instructs the printer to print the developed page data based on the combination of the print condition contents of the print condition control information register and the data invalid flag. , or decide whether to discard the page data. Based on this determination, a print instruction to perform print processing is sent to the printer.

[0008] In this manner, printing of unnecessary pages can be suppressed by setting printing conditions that determine whether or not to perform print processing depending on the presence or absence of data errors. Therefore, the amount of printing paper used when testing print data can be kept to the minimum necessary. By suppressing the printing of unnecessary pages, the time required to print those pages is omitted, so that the test time can be shortened.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of main parts of a printing control device according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 1 is a host device to which print data is sent, 2 is a receiving buffer, 3 is a graphic buffer, 4 is an editing processor, 5 is an address conversion table, 6 is a page buffer, 7 is a character pattern memory, and 8 is a graphic 9 is an expansion processor, 10 is a page memory, 11 is a dot sending circuit, 12 is a printer, and 13 is a printing condition control information register. The print control device here includes a reception buffer 2, a graphics buffer 3, an editing processor 4,
The configuration includes an address conversion table 5, a page buffer 6, a character pattern memory 7, a graphic table 8, an expansion processor 9, a page memory 10, a dot sending circuit 11, and a printing condition control information register 13.

The print data sent from the host device 1 is
The data is stored in the reception buffer 2 or the graphics buffer 3. Once the data has been accumulated, the editing processor 4
starts the print data editing process. If the print data is character data, the editing processor 4 sequentially reads the character data from the reception buffer 2 and indexes the address conversion table 5 to read the character data to the address in the character pattern memory 7 where the corresponding character pattern is stored. Convert. The converted address is stored in the page buffer 6.

On the other hand, the editing processor 4 registers the data start address and data length of the graphic buffer 3 in the graphic table 8, sets the graphic data valid flag in the page buffer 6, and sets the corresponding entry address in the graphic table 8. Set. Due to the processing of the editing processor 4, 1 is stored in the page buffer 6.
When the data of the page sentence is completed, the editing processor 4 requests the expansion processor 9 to perform expansion. At this time, if character data is to be developed, the start address of the page buffer 6 and the number of effective words are specified, and if graphic data or image data is to be developed, the entry address of the graphic table 8 is specified. When the expansion processor 9 receives a request for expansion of character data, it reads the character pattern data from the character pattern memory 7 according to the character pattern memory address stored in the page buffer 6, and stores the character pattern data in the page memory 10.
Allocate to the corresponding address. When receiving a request to develop figure/image data, the start address and data length of the graphic buffer 3 are obtained from the specified graphic table 8, and the data is sequentially decoded from the graphic buffer 3 and stored in the page memory 10. expand. When the data of one page of text is developed as a dot pattern in the page memory 10, the editing processor 4 instructs the dot sending circuit 11 to print. When receiving a printing instruction, the dot sending circuit 11 sequentially reads dot data from the page memory 10 and sends the dot data to the printer 12 for printing.

[0012] As described above, the printing conditions that instruct the printer to perform print processing include whether to print a page with a data error, to print a normal page without a data error, or to print a page with a data error before printing. Printing conditions are set in the printing condition control information register 13 to instruct either to print with or without an error or to print without any change. This is set using control data sent from the host device 1. When the editing processor 4 receives control data that sets print conditions in the reception buffer 2, it prints "Print pages with data errors,""Print normal pages," and "Print regardless of whether there is a data error." ” and sets the corresponding flag in the printing condition control information register 13.

[0013] Prior to printing, the printing conditions are set to either print a page with a data error, print a normal page without a data error, or print without changing the data error. When the flag is set in the print condition control information register 13 via the reception buffer 2 and the print data is received by the reception buffer 2, the editing processor 4 starts editing processing. In this editing process, the editing processor 4 reads data character by character from the reception buffer 2 and determines whether the data is normal. If the data is normal, the character data is edited and stored in a page buffer 6 that stores data page by page. On the other hand, if there is an error in the read data, a character data invalid flag is set in the page buffer 6,
Continue editing the following data. Edit processor 4
After editing one page of data in the page buffer 6, it requests the expansion processor 9 to expand various data. When the expansion processor 9 receives a request for expansion, it decodes various data and allocates it to a page memory 10 that stores one page's worth of dot pattern data. When the allocation is completed, the expansion processor 9 reports the completion of expansion to the editing processor 4. At this time, internal flag information indicating whether or not there is an error in the expanded data is added. Upon receiving the completion report from the expansion processor 9, the editing processor 4 determines whether or not there is an error in the expansion data.
If there are no errors, requests are made to expand sequentially until all data in the page has been expanded. On the other hand, if there is an error in the expanded data, an invalid expanded data flag is set in the page buffer 6, and the next data is requested to be expanded.

[0014] When the expansion of one page of text is completed, the editing processor 4 combines each flag representing the printing conditions in the printing condition control information register 13 set in advance, the character data invalid flag, and the expanded data invalid flag. It is determined whether to send an instruction to print the page to the printer, or to discard the expanded data and suppress printing. For example, if the "Print pages with data errors" flag is set in the print condition control information register 13, and either the character data invalid flag or expanded data invalid flag is set, the printer is instructed to print. and if none of them are set, the expanded data is discarded and printing is suppressed.

[0015] With this configuration, data editing, development into dot patterns, and printing instructions to the printer are performed, so even if a data error occurs in the print data, printing processing is performed accordingly and malfunctions are avoided. There's nothing to do. As a result, for example, when testing print data, printing of normal pages is suppressed, and the amount of printing paper consumed during testing can be kept to the minimum necessary.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the processing flow of character data editing processing performed by the editing processor. This will be explained with reference to FIG. First, in step 21,
After character data is read character by character from the reception buffer 2, it is then determined in step 22 whether or not the data is normal. If the data is normal, in step 23, the address conversion table 5 is indexed to find the address of the character pattern memory 7 where the character pattern of the corresponding character is stored, and in the next step 24, the character control It is stored in the page buffer 6 along with the information. Next, in step 25, it is determined whether the data is complete. If the data is not completed, the process returns to step 21 and the processing from step 21 is repeated.

In this way, the processing from reading character data to storing it in the page buffer 6 is carried out by the receiving buffer 2.
The processing is continued until there is no data left, and when it is determined in step 25 that the data has ended, it is determined in step 29 that the character data invalid flag is not set, and in the next step 30, Reports the completion of the command to the higher-level device.

On the other hand, if a data error is detected during data editing, this is determined in step 22. Next, in step 26, a sense byte of the data error is created, and then, in step 27, printing condition control is performed. Determine whether a flag is set in the information register. If the flag is not set in the printing condition control information register, an error may occur in the printing process in this case, so the process proceeds to step 31 and a data error is reported to the host device 1 at the end of the command. Further, if it is determined in step 27 that any flag is set in the printing condition control information register 13, the process proceeds to step 28, sets a character data invalid flag in the page buffer 6, and the next step from step 25 is performed. Continue editing the data. Furthermore, if it is determined in step 29 that the character data invalid flag is not set, an error may occur in the printing process in this case as well, so the process proceeds to step 31 and the command is sent to the host device 1. and reports a data error and terminates the process.

By repeating such page editing processing, one page of sentence data is completed in the page buffer 6. When the data for one page of sentences is completed, the editing processor 4 next requests the expansion processor 9 to expand the data into the page memory 10. The flowchart shown in FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the processing flow of a development request process that is performed by the editing processor 4 when one page's worth of data is completed in the page buffer 6. This will be explained with reference to FIG. In this process, first, an instruction is given to develop graphic/image data, and then an instruction is given to develop character data.

[0020] The editing processor 4 first performs step 35.
In step 36, it is determined whether or not there is any figure/image data in the page, and if there is figure/image data to be developed, the process proceeds to step 36 and requests the development processor 9 to develop the figure/image data. Upon receiving a completion report from the expansion processor 9 in response to this request, it is then determined in step 37 whether or not the request has been completed normally. If the end is normal, it is further determined in step 38 whether or not the figure/image data has ended, and if not, the process returns to step 36 and the process from step 36 is repeated, and the data defined in the page is The expansion request is repeated until all figure/image data is completed.

On the other hand, in the determination process of step 37,
If the completion report from the expansion processor 9 is not normal, the process proceeds to step 42, where it is determined whether or not the cause of the error is an error in the graphic/image data.If so, further, in step 43, printing condition control is performed. It is determined whether any flag is set in the information register 13. If any flag is set in the printing condition control information register 13, then in step 44, a graphic/image data invalid flag is set in the page buffer 6. If the cause of the error is other (step 42) or if any flag is not set in the printing condition control information register 13 (step 43),
Proceed directly to step 45. Next, in step 45, failure information is created in the error log buffer as usual. After creating the fault information in the error log buffer, the process proceeds to step 46, sets the fault processing request flag, and then, in the next step 47, confirms that the graphic/image data invalid flag is set in the page buffer 6. After that, the process returns to step 38 and repeats the process of requesting the development of the next data from step 38.

Further, when all graphic/image data development is completed normally, next, an instruction to develop character data is given from step 39. Character data is expanded in the same manner as graphic/image data. First, in step 39, the expansion processor 9 is requested to expand the character data. Upon receiving a completion report from the expansion processor 9 in response to this request, it is determined in the next step 40 whether or not the request has been completed normally. If the end is normal, it is further determined in step 41 whether or not the character data has ended, and if it has not ended, the process returns to step 39 and processes from step 39 are performed to ensure that the character data defined within the page is complete. Repeat the deployment request until all are completed. However, in the case of character data, the editing processor 4 checks the normality of the data during editing, so in response to a report of abnormal termination,
Step 45 without determining whether or not there is an error in the data.
Proceed to create fault information in the error log buffer. After creating the fault information in the error log buffer, in step 46, the fault processing request flag is set.
The development is interrupted through the determination step of step 47.

When the expansion into the page memory 10 is completed, the editing processor 4 next stores the flags indicating the three printing conditions set in the printing condition control information register 13, the character data invalid flag, and the graphic / Performs processing to determine whether to issue a print instruction to print the developed page data on a printer by determining the image data fraud flag, or to discard the developed page and suppress printing. The flowchart in FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a print instruction determination process that is performed at the end of pattern data development in the page memory. This print instruction determination process will be described with reference to FIG. 4.

In this determination process, in each of steps 51, 52, and 53, the flag of the printing condition set in the printing condition control information register 13 is determined, and according to each determination result, the flag corresponding to the determination result is determined. Proceed to processing step. That is, if it is determined in step 51 that the "flag for printing pages with data errors" is set, furthermore, if it is determined in step 55 that the character data invalid flag is set, If it is determined in step 56 that the figure/image data fraud flag is set, the process proceeds to step 60, where a print instruction is given to the printer. If neither the character data invalid flag nor the figure/image data invalid flag is set,
Proceeding to step 57, the expanded data expanded into the page memory is discarded.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step 52 that the "normal page printing flag" is set, and if it is further determined in step 58 that the character data invalid flag is set, Further, if it is determined in step 59 that the figure/image data fraud flag is set, step 5
Proceed to step 7 and discard the expanded data expanded into the page memory. If neither the character data fraud flag nor the figure/image data fraud flag is set, the process advances to step 60, and a print instruction is given to the printer.

If it is determined in step 53 that the ``flag to print regardless of the presence or absence of data errors'' is set, the process directly advances to step 60 to instruct the printer to print. After instructing the printer to print, only if it is determined in step 61 that the graphic/image data fraud flag is set, a process of resetting the failure processing request flag in step 62 is performed. In addition, in this judgment process, in particular,
If it cannot be determined that any print condition flags are set in the print condition control information register, a print instruction is issued to confirm the error, and the process proceeds to step 54, where the printer is instructed to print. end.

In this way, for example, if the flag to print a normal page is set, and neither the character data invalid flag nor the graphic/image data invalid flag is set, the printer is instructed to print. , if either is set, the expanded data is discarded and printing to the printer is inhibited. Here, if some flag is set in the printing condition control information register,
In order to prevent printing from stopping due to image data errors, if the figure/image data invalid flag is set,
Reset the failure handling request flag.

As explained above, in the print control device of this embodiment, printing conditions are set from the host device to determine whether or not to perform print processing depending on the presence or absence of data errors. Printing of pages can be suppressed. In the description of this embodiment, it is assumed that the printing conditions are set from the host device, but it is also possible to set them using an option switch provided in the print control device.

[0029]

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, in the print control device of the present invention, the printing of unnecessary pages can be suppressed by setting the printing condition of whether or not to perform the printing process depending on the presence or absence of data errors. can do. For this reason,
The amount of printing paper used when testing print data can be kept to the minimum necessary. Also. By suppressing the printing of unnecessary pages, the time required to print the pages is omitted, so that the test time can be shortened.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of main parts of a printing control device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing flow of character data editing processing performed by an editing processor;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the processing flow of an expansion request process performed by an editing processor when one page's worth of data is completed in the page buffer;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a print instruction determination process that is performed when pattern data development in a page memory is completed;

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Upper device, 2... Reception buffer, 3... Graphic buffer, 4... Edit processor, 5... Address conversion table, 6... Page buffer, 7... Character pattern memory, 8
...Graphic table, 9...Deployment processor, 10...
Page memory, 11... Dot sending circuit, 12... Printer, 13... Printing condition control information register.

Claims (5)

[Claims] Claim 1: A printing condition control information register that sets printing conditions that instruct printing processing depending on the presence or absence of data errors, and a register that is used to edit print data sent from a host device and develop it into a dot pattern. Error detection means that sets a data invalid flag indicating a data error on the corresponding page in the page buffer when a data error is detected, and a print instruction that performs print processing based on a combination of the print condition contents of the print condition control information register and the data invalid flag. 1. A print control device comprising: print control means for sending out a print result to a printer. 2. In a print control device connected to a host device, which edits print data sent from the host device, develops it into a dot pattern, stores it in a page memory, and sends a print instruction to a printer. , an error detection means that detects the presence or absence of a data error in print data stored in the page memory and sets a data invalid flag, and a printing condition control information register that sets printing conditions that instruct print processing depending on the presence or absence of a data error. and a print control that sends a print instruction to the printer page by page to print the print data stored in the page memory based on the combination of the contents of the print condition control information register and the data invalid flag when the print data has been expanded to the page memory. A printing control device comprising: means. 3. In the printing control device according to claim 1 or 2, the printing conditions set in the printing condition control information register are such that printing is performed only on all pages in which data errors are detected, and printing is performed only on all pages in which data errors are detected. A print control device characterized in that the condition is to suppress printing of normal pages. 4. In the printing control device according to claim 1 or 2, the printing conditions set in the printing condition control information register are such that printing is performed only on normal pages without data errors, and printing is performed on pages with data errors. A printing control device characterized in that: is a condition for inhibiting printing. 5. In the printing control device according to claim 1 or 2, the printing conditions set in the printing condition control information register do not change whether there is a data error or not.
A print control device characterized in that the condition is to print all pages.