Tabular Data Support and What to Expect

In order for /usr/bin/ebprt to understand the format of a report, separators that indicate the start and end of a field within a table must be embedded in the text before it is received by the filter. The insertion of the separators must be done during the file generation phase by the user. This allows the filter to process the data without corrupting the field order. The filter provides an option to hide these separators from the final output on the printer in order to satisfy user requirements. Information describing the separator used must be specified by the user in the configuration file /etc/ebprt.conf. With separators embedded in the required positions to delimit data fields, the filter will guarantee that the pre-formatted layout will not be lost. In the case where it is difficult or not feasible to insert separators during the report generation phase, the filter may be configured to use the white space character as a field separator. This option must be used with care as it does not guarantee that the output will match the desired format.