JPH1031569A - Print controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide the printer controller which is flexibly adaptive to alterations of a system and easily maintained. SOLUTION: When a print job sent from a client 12 is received by a spooler 18 and a job process is left to a print control part 22, the print control part 22 indicates the job process to a PDL process part 26, and consequently the PDL process part 26 requests the print control part 22 to perform necessary file operation. The print control part 22 performs the specific file operation for a corresponding file according to an indication instruction system corresponding to a file server 14 stored with the file to be processed and passes it to the PDL process part 26. The PDL process part 26 generates raster data from the passed file. The raster data are printed out by a print hardware control part 24.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a print control apparatus, and more particularly to a print control apparatus that reads a file stored in a plurality of file storage units and described in a page description language and obtains print data therefrom.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A page description language (P) on a file server
DL) When printing data using a conventional print server, once a file server sends a P
DL data is transferred, and then the client sends the PDL data itself to the print server, which processes the print data to obtain print data.

FIG. 6 shows an example of such a conventional print server. In FIG. 6, PDL data is stored in remote file servers 14 (file servers A and B) on the network. When printing these PDL data, the client 12 transfers the PDL data received from the file server 14 to the print server 10. The PDL data transferred from the client 12 to the print server 10 is received by the communication unit 16 as a print job including the PDL data.

[0004] Next, the spooler 18 receives the job from the communication unit 16 and saves the PDL data to a spool area of the storage unit 20. The spool 18 is provided in the print control unit 2.
When 2 is in the idle state, it requests processing of the job received from the communication unit 16.

When requested by the spooler 18 for job processing, the print control unit 22 instructs the print hardware control unit 24 to prepare for a printer,
The file name of the PDL data in the storage unit 20 is passed to the L processing unit 26, and the start of the process is instructed.

[0006] The PDL processing unit 26 performs open, r on the PDL data file stored in the storage unit 20.
Execute file operations such as ead, seek, size, and close. In FIG. 6, a number 1 is added to each of these file operations, which means that the operation is a file operation for a file stored in the storage unit 20.

[0007] Here, open indicates opening of a file, and close indicates closing of the file. Also re
ad is an operation of reading data from the current position of the pointer indicating the position in the file to be processed, and then updating the position of the pointer to the next read position, and seek is an operation for changing the read position of data from the file. , An operation of changing the position of the pointer, and size is an operation of reading the size of the file to be handled.

The PDL processing section 26 interprets and processes the PDL data while executing the above-described file operations to create raster data as print data. The print hardware control unit 24 controls predetermined hardware such as a printer in order to actually output the raster data created by the PDL processing unit 26 on paper. The print control unit 22 performs the PDL processing unit 26 during each operation described above.
And the print hardware control unit 24.

[0009]

In the above-described conventional print server 10, all file operations are performed by the PDL processing unit 26. This is because all files to be processed are on the local disk as the storage unit 20 and there is only one type of file operation on the local storage unit 20. Because there was no inconvenience.

However, if the file to be processed is expanded not only to the file on the local storage unit 20 but also to a file on a remote file server 14, each file on each file server 14 is In addition, it is necessary to execute a file operation using an instruction command system corresponding to each file server 14. That is,
To access a file on the remote file server 14, the PDL processing unit 2 that executes a file operation
6 must be configured to perform file operations corresponding to the respective file servers 14.

For this reason, whenever the number of file servers 14 is to be increased, the number of file operations of the PDL processing unit 26 must be increased each time. It is necessary to port each file operation to the PDL processing unit using a different instruction command system corresponding to all the file servers 14. Therefore, addition of the file server 14 and P
There is a problem that it is very difficult to add the DL processing unit 26.

When the PDL processing unit 26 is provided with file operations corresponding to all the file servers 14,
Since each DL processing unit 26 has a duplicate file operation, the print server 10 becomes complicated and maintenance becomes difficult.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and has as its object to provide a print control apparatus which can flexibly cope with a change in the system and which can be easily maintained.

[0014]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention reads out files stored in a plurality of file storage units having different instruction command systems, and executes processing based on the read contents. A processing unit for requesting access to a file to be processed and creating print data from the contents of the file passed in response to the request; and And a control unit that outputs an instruction to the file storage unit storing the requested file in an instruction command system corresponding to the file storage unit, accesses the corresponding file, and passes the file to the processing unit. I do.

A print control apparatus for reading files stored in a plurality of file storage units having different instruction command systems and executing processing based on the read contents to obtain print data. A communication unit that receives the print job, a spooler that receives the print job received by the communication unit, and issues a job processing request to start processing the print job, and receives a job processing request from the spooler and processes the corresponding file. A control unit for controlling, a processing unit for creating print data from the contents of the file passed from the control unit based on an instruction from the control unit, and a print data created by the processing unit based on an instruction from the control unit A print hardware control unit for operating the printer, wherein the processing unit instructs the control unit to generate print data. Then, the control unit requests the control unit to access the file to be processed, and the control unit stores the file requested by the processing unit in the file storage unit using the instruction system corresponding to the file storage unit. An instruction is output and the corresponding file is passed to the access processing unit.

According to the above configuration, since the control unit accesses the file using the instruction command system corresponding to each file storage unit, it is not necessary to provide a plurality of instruction command systems for each processing unit. Further, the request for access to the file to be processed by the processing unit is a request for an abstracted file operation to the control unit.

Also, this abstracted file operation is:
Read for instructing reading of data from the current position of the pointer indicating the position in the file and updating of the pointer position
, A seek for instructing a change of a pointer position to change a data read position, and a size for reading a size of a file to be handled.

According to the above configuration, since the processing unit only requests the control unit to perform one type of file operation, the configuration of the processing unit is simplified.

[0019]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a print control apparatus according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, a print server 10 corresponds to the print control device of the present invention.

FIG. 1 shows an example in which two file servers A and B are connected as a file server 14 on a network.
The number of 4 is not necessarily two, and can be set to any number. Each of these file servers 14 has a different instruction command system.

In this embodiment, the file server 14
When printing the above PDL data, the client 12 sends the PDL data or a reference to the PDL data to the print server 10. Here, the reference includes the name of the file server on which the PDL data is stored and the name of the file on the file server 14.
0 is data for knowing the position of a file to be accessed to obtain the PDL data.

When PDL data or its reference is sent from the client 12, the communication unit 16 accepts a print job including the PDL data or its reference, and the spooler 18 receives this print job. At this time, client 1
If the PDL data itself is included in the print job sent from 2, the spooler 18 saves the PDL data to a spool area of the storage unit 20, that is, an area managed by the spooler 18. On the other hand, if the print job includes a reference to the PDL data, the PDL data is not saved in the spool area of the storage unit 20.

The file server 14 and the storage unit 20 described above correspond to the file storage unit of the present invention.

The spooler 18 requests processing of a print job received from the communication unit 16 when the print control unit 22 is in the idle state. When requested by the spooler 18 for job processing, the print control unit 22 instructs the print hardware control unit 24 to prepare predetermined hardware such as a printer, and instructs the PDL processing unit 26 to start processing the job. Instruct. Here, the print control unit 2
2 corresponds to the control unit of the present invention, and the PDL processing unit 26 corresponds to the processing unit of the present invention.

The PDL processing unit 26 instructed by the print control unit 22 to perform job processing interprets and processes the PDL data to create raster data as print data. The print hardware control unit 24 controls predetermined hardware such as a printer in order to actually output the raster data created by the PDL processing unit 26 on paper. In these cases, the print control unit 22 controls operations of the print hardware control unit 24 and the PDL processing unit 26.

A feature of the present invention is that the print control unit 22 transfers the corresponding file from the file server 14 to the storage unit 20 based on the reference sent from the client 12, performs various file operations, and removes the unnecessary files. The point is to execute operations such as discarding.

For this reason, at the time of job processing, the PDL processing unit 2
6 does not need to perform any specific file operations,
It is only necessary to request the print control unit 22 for a file operation. That is, when instructed by the print control unit 22 to perform job processing, the PDL processing unit 26 requests the print control unit 22 to access a file to be processed, execute a predetermined file operation, and pass the result. The print control unit 22 executes data transfer and file operation using a command system corresponding to the file server 14 storing the file requested by the PDL processing unit 26, and passes the result to the PDL processing unit 26. In the PDL processing unit 26,
As described above, raster data is created from the passed result.

When the data sent from the client 12 is the PDL data itself, the file is saved in the spool area of the storage unit 20 as described above. Accordingly, in response to a request from the PDL processing unit 26, the print control unit 22 accesses a file on the local spool area, executes a predetermined file operation using a command system corresponding to the storage unit 20, and then executes the PDL. The result is passed to the processing unit 26.

As described above, the PDL processing unit 26 only needs to request the print control unit 22 to perform a file operation. Therefore, the file server 14 and the storage unit 2 are abstracted with the print control unit 22.
Only a common file operation irrespective of the difference between the instruction command systems corresponding to the spool area of 0 needs to be implemented.

Here, as the type of the abstracted file operation, data is read from the current position of the pointer indicating the position in the file to be processed, and then the read for updating the position of the pointer to the next read position is performed. And seek for changing the position of the pointer to change the reading position of the data from the file, and size for reading the size of the file to be handled.

With the above configuration, even when the file server 14 is added, the PDL processing unit 26
No need to make any changes to Also, when a new PDL processing unit 26 is added, only the implementation of an abstracted file operation for requesting the print control unit 22 to perform a file operation may be performed.
Need not be implemented in the added PDL processing unit 26. Further, when improving the file server 14, only the print control unit 22 needs to be changed. Therefore, the print server 10 according to the present embodiment can flexibly respond to changes in the system, can easily improve file operations and the like, and has excellent maintainability.

FIG. 1 shows an example of a file operation for each of the file server 14 and the storage unit 20 mounted on the print control unit 22. open, read, see
A file operation consisting of k, size, and close, with reference numeral 1 (open1, read, respectively)
1, 1, seek1, size1, and close1) represent file operations on files stored locally, ie, in an area (spool area) managed by the spooler 18 of the storage unit 20. In addition, each file operation with reference numeral 2 (open2, read2, seek2, s
“size2, close2)” represents a file operation on the file server A. Also, each file operation is given a reference numeral 3 (open3, read3, see
k3, size3, and close3) represent file operations on the file server B. If the number of file servers 14 increases, the types of these file operations also increase and are implemented in the print control unit 22.

As described above, the print control unit 22 includes the remote file servers 14 and the print server 10
A file operation of an instruction command system corresponding to each file stored in the spool area of the storage unit 20 existing as a local therein is implemented. Therefore, PDL
When the above-mentioned file operation is requested from the processing unit 26, each file storage unit, that is, the file server 14
Alternatively, a file operation corresponding to each storage unit 20 can be executed.

FIG. 2 shows an operation flow when the print control unit 22 receives a print job processing request from the spooler 18. 2, when a job processing request is received from the spooler 18 (S1), the print control unit 22 checks PDL data to be processed (S2).

The PDL data to be processed, that is, the PDL sent from the client 12 via the communication unit 16
It is confirmed whether or not the data is a reference (S3).

If it is a reference, it is confirmed whether or not the file corresponding to the reference has been transferred to an area managed by the print control unit 22 of the storage unit 20 (S4). If not, the print control unit 22 requests the communication unit 16 to transfer the corresponding PDL data to the storage unit 20, and the communication unit 16 stores the corresponding file via the client 12 in the storage unit. 20 (S
5).

The file transferred to the storage unit 20 is opened by the print control unit 22 (S6). The file operation in this case is a file operation based on a command system corresponding to the remote file server 14 such as open2 or open3 shown in FIG. If the corresponding file has been transferred to the area managed by the print control unit 22 of the storage unit 20, the process of S5 is not performed, and the print control unit 22 immediately opens the corresponding file (S4, S6). ).

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S3 that the data is not a reference, the data to be processed is the PDL data itself. Since it is stored, the print control unit 22 opens the file in the spool area (S7). The file operation in this case is open1 of the instruction system corresponding to the spool area shown in FIG.

The file opened as described above is read, see,
The print control unit 22 performs a predetermined file operation according to k and size, and is then passed to the PDL processing unit 26. In the PDL processing unit 26, the P
Predetermined processing is performed on the DL data to create raster data. The print hardware control unit 24 controls predetermined hardware such as a printer based on the raster data, and the raster data is printed on a sheet (S8).

Next, the print control unit 22
It is confirmed whether the DL data is a reference (S9).
If it is a reference, the file for which processing has been completed is closed (S10). The file operation at this time is, for example, close2 or close3 shown in FIG.

Next, the print control unit 22 checks whether there is sufficient free space in the area of the storage unit 20 managed by the print control unit 22 (S11). If the free space is smaller than the predetermined amount, the oldest files stored therein are deleted in order, and the necessary free space is secured (S12). If there is enough free space, the old file is not deleted (S
11).

After performing the above operations, the print control unit 22 notifies the spooler 18 of the end of the requested job processing (S13).

If it is determined in S9 that the file is not a reference, the print control unit 22 closes the local file stored in the spool area managed by the spooler 18 of the storage unit 20 (S14). The end of the job processing is notified to the spooler 18 (S13). The file operation of the print control unit 22 at this time is close1 shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 shows that the print control unit 22
An operation flow when a read processing request is received from the processing unit 26 is shown. In FIG. 3, when the print control unit 22 receives a read processing request from the PDL processing unit 26 (S20), the PDL data currently being processed is checked (S21).

Here, if the PDL data currently being processed has been sent with reference only from the client 12 (S22), the print control unit 2 of the storage unit 20
It is confirmed whether or not the PDL data itself has been transferred to the area managed by 2 (S23).

If the PDL data itself has not been transferred to the storage unit 20, the print control unit 22 requests the communication unit 16 to transfer the corresponding PDL data.
The communication unit 16 transfers the PDL data to be processed to the storage unit 20 via the client 12 (S24).

When the corresponding PDL data is transferred to the storage unit 20, the print control unit 22 opens the transferred file (S25). The file operation in this case is open2 or open3 shown in FIG.

On the other hand, if the corresponding PDL data has been transferred to the storage unit 20 in S23, the print control unit 22 immediately opens the corresponding file without performing the operation of S24 (S23, S25).

The print control unit 22 subsequently executes read on the file opened by the print control unit 22 (S26).

Next, the print control unit 22 returns the read execution result to the PDL processing unit 26 (S2).
7). The above read is, for example, the read shown in FIG.
This is a read process based on a command system corresponding to the remote file server 14 such as d2 and read3.

In S22, the PDL to be processed
If the data was not sent by reference only, P
Since the DL data itself is transferred and stored in the spool area of the storage unit 20, the print control unit 22 executes the above read on the file in this spool area (S28). Rea
The execution result of d is returned (S27). Read in this case
Is read1 corresponding to the spool area shown in FIG.
It is.

FIG. 4 shows that the print control unit 22
An operation flow when a request for a seek process of the processing unit 26 is received is shown.

FIG. 4 is a flow in which the read portion in FIG. 3 is replaced with seek in comparison with the flow in FIG. Accordingly, in FIG.
However, only the seek process is performed instead of the read process, and the other operations are the same as those in FIG.

FIG. 5 shows an operation flow when the print control unit 22 receives a request for size processing from the PDL processing unit 26.

In FIG. 5 as well, the read portion in the flow shown in FIG. 3 is replaced with size, and the print control unit 22 executes s instead of performing the read process.
The only difference is that the size process is performed, and the other operations are the same as those in FIG.

As a result of the seek processing, it is determined whether the change of the pointer position has succeeded or failed.
The size of the file read as a result of the size processing is returned to the PDL processing unit 26 as a result of the size processing.

[0058]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The configuration is such that the print control unit executes all file operations to be performed for each file server and storage unit based on a separate instruction command system. For this reason,
The PDL processing unit does not perform a specific file operation, but only requests the print control unit to perform this operation. Therefore, it is possible to flexibly cope with a change in the system. Also, since it is not necessary to implement individual file operations in the PDL processing unit, it is possible to easily add a PDL processing unit. In addition, maintenance of the file server is easy because only the print control unit 22 needs to be changed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a printing control apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a flow when the print control unit receives a job processing request from a PDL processing unit in the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a flow of an operation when a print control unit is requested to perform a read process from a PDL processing unit in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a flow of an operation when a print control unit is requested to perform a seek process from a PDL processing unit in the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an operation flow when a print control unit is requested to perform a size process from a PDL processing unit in the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a conventional print control apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 print server, 12 client, 14 file server, 16 communication unit, 18 spooler, 20 storage unit, 22 print control unit, 24 print hardware control unit, 26 PDL processing unit.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Toyooka Uda 3-2-1, Sakado, Takatsu-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa KSP R & D Business Park Building Inside Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Toshihiko Shibusawa Takatsu-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa 3-2-1 Sakado KSP R & D Business Park Building Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. (72) The inventor Takaaki Hiramatsu 3-2-1 Sakado Takatsu-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa KSP R & D Business Park Building Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A print control apparatus for reading files stored in a plurality of file storage units having different instruction command systems and executing processing based on the read contents to obtain print data. A processing unit that requests access to a file to be accessed and creates print data from the contents of the file passed in response to the request; and a file storage unit that stores the file requested by the processing unit to access the file. A control unit that outputs an instruction in an instruction instruction system corresponding to a storage unit, accesses the file, and passes the file to the processing unit. 2. A print control apparatus for reading files stored in a plurality of file storage units having different instruction command systems and executing processing based on the read contents to obtain print data. A communication unit that receives the print job; a spooler that receives the print job received by the communication unit and issues a job processing request to start processing the print job; and a file that receives the job processing request from the spooler, and A processing unit that creates print data from the contents of a file passed from the control unit based on an instruction from the control unit; and a processing unit based on an instruction from the control unit. A print hardware control unit that operates the printer based on the print data created by the processing unit, and the processing unit When the control unit instructs creation of print data, the control unit requests the control unit to access a file to be processed. The control unit includes a file storage unit storing the file requested by the processing unit to access. And outputting an instruction in an instruction instruction system corresponding to the file storage unit, accessing the file, and passing the file to the processing unit. 3. The print control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the request for access to a file to be processed by the processing unit is a request for an abstracted file operation to the control unit. Characteristic print control device. 4. The print control device according to claim 3, wherein the file operation includes changing a data read position and a read instruction for reading data from a current position of a pointer indicating a position in the file and updating the pointer position. And a size for reading the size of a file to be handled.