JPH0720763Y2 - Print control device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION <Industrial Application Field> The present invention relates to an improvement of a print control device installed in a plurality of work stations or the like and controlling a print operation sequence by a spooling function. .

<Prior Art> The conventional printing operation using the spooling function is of a FIFO type in which spooling is performed in the order in which print requests arrive and printing is performed in this order.

That is, when the print requests R1, R2, R3 consisting of data to be printed arrive, the print requests are sequentially stored in the FIFO, and the print requests R1, R2, R3 are controlled in this order.

<Problems to be Solved by the Invention> However, in the conventional print control device, since each print request is not associated with each other, it is possible to control the printing order of data on the side requesting printing. If this is not possible and a print request with a high degree of urgency interrupts or another print request interrupts during data transfer of continuous printing, these printing operations are made to wait and continuous printing or priority printing cannot be performed.

The present invention aims to solve the above problems,
It is intended to enable the print request side to control the order of print requests.

<Means for Solving the Problems> According to the present invention, which solves the above problems, a print request including data to be printed includes a key indicating continuous printing, an order of printing, and an order of marks indicating start and end of continuous printing. A FIFO and a control information registration unit that adds control information and temporarily stores the print request and the sequence control information that are given at random, a queue management unit that edits the sequence control information in the order of continuous printing, and this queue management And a printing unit for taking out the print request from the FIFO and printing the print request according to the order control information designated by the unit.

<Operation> The print control apparatus of the present invention reads the order control information added to the print requests sequentially transmitted, stores the queues again in the print order, and determines the print order according to the queues.

<Embodiment> FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram of the configuration of a print control apparatus embodying the present invention.

In this figure, the FIFO1 stores the transmitted print request and is the same as the conventional one.

Further, in the present invention, as will be described in detail later, order control information including a key indicating continuous printing, a print order, and marks indicating start and end of continuous printing is added to a print request including data in advance. I have to.

This order control information is stored in the control information registration unit 2.

The scheduler 3 is a control unit that manages the entire device.

The reading unit 4 is a unit for reading the information stored in the FIFO 1 and the control information registration unit 2.

The queue creation unit 5 creates a queue corresponding to the print request and the order control information based on the information from the reading unit 5, and the queue management unit 6 prints the queues A0, A1, A2, ... In accordance with the order control information. It is the part to rearrange.

The control information check unit 7 is a unit that checks whether or not the queues are continuously arranged, the queue take-out unit 8 takes out the queue from the queue management unit 6, and the printing unit 9 is a unit that actually prints. .

Although each part of the device of the present invention has been described as hardware for convenience, each element is actually realized as a spooler system (operating system) on UNIX.

Now, the operation of the device of the present invention having such a configuration will be described with reference to the operation conceptual diagram of FIG.

In this figure, the print control device shown in FIG. 1 is used as 10 and the print request and the sequence control information are input and output.

Where A1 (start), A2, A3 (end), B1 (start), B2, B3
(End) represents order control information added to the print request, A and B are keys indicating continuous printing, 1, 2, and 3 are print orders,
(Start) is a mark indicating the start of continuous printing, and (end) is a mark indicating the end of continuous printing.

If these print requests are input in the order of A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, there is no problem in the conventional spooler system, but in reality, they are sent randomly (in any order). The device of the present invention is effective.

Regarding these randomly transmitted print request and order control information, the print request is stored in the FIFO1, and the order control information is stored in the control information registration unit 2. In response to a command from the scheduler 3, the reading unit 4 reads the sequence control information from the control information registration unit 2 and the print request from the FIFO 1, and the queue creation unit 5 creates a corresponding queue.

The queue management unit 6 reads the contents of the given queue,
The swap operation is performed so that the queue is stored at the most suitable position. That is, the currently stored queues are A0, A1, B1
, And if the newly given queue is A2, then A
Insert A2 between 1 and B1 and store again like A0, A1, A2, B1.

Next, the control information check unit 7 checks whether or not the queue given from the queue management unit 6 is continuous with the previously printed queue, and when the head of the queue is continuous printing, or preferentially. If the queue should be printed,
The queue extracting unit 8 takes out the queue, and the printing unit 9 finally executes the printing operation in the order of A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3.

If the head of the queue is not continuous printing, the control information check unit 7 waits until the next print request is given.

<Advantages of Device> As described above, according to the print control device of the present invention, continuous printing can be smoothly performed, a high-priority print request can be satisfied, and a high degree of flexibility for the user can be achieved. A spooler system can be realized.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram of the configuration of a print control device embodying the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of the operation of the device of the present invention shown in FIG. 1 ... FIFO, 2 ... control information registration unit, 3 ... scheduler, 4 ... reading unit, 5 ... queue creating unit, 6 ... queue management unit, 7 ... control information checking unit, 8 ... queue Take-out section, 9 ... Printing section.

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] 1. A print request including a data to be printed, added with sequence control information consisting of a key indicating continuous printing, a printing order, marks indicating start and end of continuous printing, and the print request randomly given. A FIFO and control information registration unit that temporarily stores the sequence control information, a queue management unit that edits the sequence control information in the order in which they should be continuously printed, and the printing from the FIFO according to the sequence control information specified by the queue management unit. A printing control device having a printing unit for fetching and printing a request.