Displaying printer information

If you need to obtain the functional characteristics of a printer, you can do so without creating a PSF trace or memory dump. By using the display function in PSF, you can display the information in the system log or write it to a data set so you can view it or format and print it. The display function takes the printer information available with the IPDS STM and the XOH-OPC command responses and displays it to you.

These methods are used for displaying printer information:

• Activate the display printer information function in the PSF startup procedure. A DD statement in the PSF startup procedure defines the data set to which the printer information is sent. PSF always saves printer information for each printer defined in the startup procedure.
• Use the PSF operator interface to specify the display printer information parameter. This interface can dynamically display printer information in the system log. You can use the MVS™ MODIFY command to display the printer information in the system log; however, it can only be used in deferred-printing mode.

Requesting printer information with the PSF startup procedure

You use a DD statement in the PSF startup procedure to specify the data set where the printer characteristics information is written for each printer defined in the startup procedure. PSF creates a member in the data set for each printer. The member name in the data set is the printer FSA name, such as PRT612. Before you specify the data set in the DD statement, you must allocate a partitioned data set (PDS). After information is saved to the data set, you can view and print the printer information report.

Allocating the partitioned data set

You must allocate the PDS as "PDSE" to reduce problems with insufficient directory blocks and storage space and to allow multiple FSAs to open the data set without a system abend. IBM® recommends that the PDS have the attributes specified in Table 7.

Specifying the DD statement

Figure 8 shows the format of the DD statement you use for saving printer information to a data set. The DD name for the PRTINFO data set must always be PRTINFO. The data set name can be anything you want; however, IBM suggests that you use the name of the startup procedure and the PRTINFO qualifier to accurately identify the information that the data set contains. You should also use DISP=SHR to let multiple PSF FSAs simultaneously write printer information to the data set.

//PRTINFO    DD   DSNAME=fssname.prtinfo,DISP=SHR

Figure 9 shows the DD statement used to display printer information for a printer when the FSS name is APSWPROT.

//PRTINFO    DD DSNAME=APSWPROT.PRTINFO,DISP=SHR

Viewing and printing the report

After the printer information is saved to the data set, you can view the softcopy report (see Softcopy report for an example of the source data). You can also format the softcopy report and print it as a hardcopy report.

To generate a hardcopy printer information report, use these IBM-supplied page and form definitions to format the softcopy report:

Page definition

P1DPI01

Form definition

F1DPI01

The page definition uses PPFA record formatting to define the resulting printer information report. It also uses proportional spaced and monospaced, sans-serif fonts from AFP Font Collection Version 2. Because the report contains unprintable characters returned by the printer for some fields, IBM recommends that you specify DATACK=BLOCK in your print request to avoid messages about incorrect characters.

Figure 10 shows an example of a job stream that formats the softcopy printer information report for printing as a hardcopy report.

//JOB1      JOB    ...
//STEP1     EXEC   PGM=IEBGENER  
//SYSPRINT  DD     SYSOUT=*  
//SYSIN     DD     DUMMY  
//OUTRL     OUTPUT PAGEDEF=DPI01,FORMDEF=DPI01,DATACK=BLOCK  
//SYSUT2    DD     SYSOUT=*, OUTPUT=*.OUTRL  
//SYSUT1    DD     DSN=APSWPROT.PRTINFO(PRT612),DISP=SHR         

For an example of a hardcopy printer information report, see Hardcopy report.

Requesting printer information with the MODIFY command

A system programmer or operator who needs to obtain the functional characteristics of a printer can do so by specifying the display function with the PSF operator interface. The display function takes the printer information available with the IPDS STM command and the XOH-OPC command responses and dynamically displays it in the system log.

The MVS MODIFY command is used to display the printer information in the system log; however, it can only be used in deferred-printing mode, PSF must be connected to the printer, and the printer must be in ready status. PSF is connected to the printer when APS933I has been issued and a disconnect message such as APS929I has not been issued.

Figure 11 shows the format of the MODIFY command used for displaying printer information.

To display printer information, the PSF operator enters the MODIFY (or F) command with the DISPLAY and DATA=PRTINFO parameters.

The parameters used with the MODIFY command to display printer information are:

fss_name

Specifies the name of the FSS for which information is displayed. This parameter is required and must match the FSS parameter for the JES2 FSS statement or the FSSNAME parameter for the JES3 FSSDEF statement.

DISPLAY

Specifies that information is displayed in the system log. This parameter is required.

fsa_name

Specifies the name of the printer for which information is displayed. This parameter is required.

DATA=PRTINFO

Specifies that information from the STM and OPC is displayed in the system log.

Figure 12 shows the MODIFY command used to display printer information when the FSS name is APSWPROT and the printer name is PRT614.

MODIFY APSWPROT,DISPLAY,PRT614,DATA=PRTINFO

For an example of printer information displayed in the system log, see Softcopy report.