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LP(1P)			   POSIX Programmer's Manual			LP(1P)

PROLOG
       This  manual  page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux
       implementation of this interface may differ (consult the	 corresponding
       Linux  manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
       not be implemented on Linux.

NAME
       lp — send files to a printer

SYNOPSIS
       lp [−c] [−d dest] [−n copies] [−msw] [−o option]... [−t title] [file...]

DESCRIPTION
       The lp utility shall copy the input files to an output  destination  in
       an  unspecified	manner.	 The default output destination should be to a
       hardcopy device, such as a printer or microfilm recorder, that produces
       non-volatile,  human-readable documents. If such a device is not avail‐
       able to the application, or if the system provides no such device,  the
       lp utility shall exit with a non-zero exit status.

       The  actual  writing to the output device may occur some time after the
       lp utility successfully exits. During the portion of the	 writing  that
       corresponds  to	each  input  file,  the implementation shall guarantee
       exclusive access to the device.

       The lp utility shall associate a unique request ID with each request.

       Normally, a banner page is produced to separate and identify each print
       job.  This page may be suppressed by implementation-defined conditions,
       such as an operator command or one of the −o option values.

OPTIONS
       The lp  utility	shall  conform	to  the	 Base  Definitions  volume  of
       POSIX.1‐2008, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following options shall be supported:

       −c	 Exit  only  after further access to any of the input files is
		 no longer required. The application can then safely delete or
		 modify the files without affecting the output operation. Nor‐
		 mally, files are not copied, but are linked  whenever	possi‐
		 ble.  If  the −c option is not given, then the user should be
		 careful not to remove any of the files before the request has
		 been printed in its entirety. It should also be noted that in
		 the absence of the −c option, any changes made to  the	 named
		 files	after the request is made but before it is printed may
		 be reflected in the printed output.  On some implementations,
		 −c may be on by default.

       −d dest	 Specify  a string that names the destination (dest).  If dest
		 is a printer, the request shall be printed only on that  spe‐
		 cific	printer.  If  dest is a class of printers, the request
		 shall be printed on the first available  printer  that	 is  a
		 member	 of  the  class.  Under	 certain  conditions  (printer
		 unavailability, file space limitation, and so	on),  requests
		 for  specific	destinations need not be accepted. Destination
		 names vary between systems.

		 If −d is not specified, and neither the  LPDEST  nor  PRINTER
		 environment  variable	is  set, an unspecified destination is
		 used. The −d dest option shall take precedence	 over  LPDEST,
		 which	in  turn  shall take precedence over PRINTER.  Results
		 are undefined when dest contains a value that is not a	 valid
		 destination name.

       −m	 Send  mail  (see mailx) after the files have been printed. By
		 default, no mail is sent upon normal completion of the	 print
		 request.

       −n copies Write copies number of copies of the files, where copies is a
		 positive decimal integer. The methods for producing  multiple
		 copies	 and  for  arranging the multiple copies when multiple
		 file operands are used are unspecified, except that each file
		 shall	be  output  as an integral whole, not interleaved with
		 portions of other files.

       −o option Specify printer-dependent or class-dependent  options.	  Sev‐
		 eral  such  options  may  be  collected  by specifying the −o
		 option more than once.

       −s	 Suppress messages from lp.

       −t title	 Write title on the banner page of the output.

       −w	 Write a message on the user's terminal after the  files  have
		 been  printed.	 If the user is not logged in, then mail shall
		 be sent instead.

OPERANDS
       The following operand shall be supported:

       file	 A pathname of a file to be output. If no  file	 operands  are
		 specified,  or	 if  a file operand is '−', the standard input
		 shall be used. If a file operand is used, but the  −c	option
		 is  not  specified, the process performing the writing to the
		 output device may have user and group permissions that differ
		 from that of the process invoking lp.

STDIN
       The  standard  input  shall be used only if no file operands are speci‐
       fied, or if a file operand is '−'.  See the INPUT FILES section.

INPUT FILES
       The input files shall be text files.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of lp:

       LANG	 Provide a default value for  the  internationalization	 vari‐
		 ables	that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions vol‐
		 ume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization	 Vari‐
		 ables	for  the  precedence of internationalization variables
		 used to determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL	 If set to a non-empty string value, override  the  values  of
		 all the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE	 Determine  the	 locale for the interpretation of sequences of
		 bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
		 opposed  to  multi-byte  characters  in  arguments  and input
		 files).

       LC_MESSAGES
		 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
		 and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error
		 and informative messages written to standard output.

       LC_TIME	 Determine the format and contents of date  and	 time  strings
		 displayed in the lp banner page, if any.

       LPDEST	 Determine the destination. If the LPDEST environment variable
		 is not set, the PRINTER environment variable shall  be	 used.
		 The −d dest option takes precedence over LPDEST.  Results are
		 undefined when −d is not  specified  and  LPDEST  contains  a
		 value that is not a valid destination name.

       NLSPATH	 Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing
		 of LC_MESSAGES.

       PRINTER	 Determine the output device or destination. If the LPDEST and
		 PRINTER  environment  variables  are  not set, an unspecified
		 output device is used. The −d	dest  option  and  the	LPDEST
		 environment  variable	shall  take  precedence	 over PRINTER.
		 Results are undefined when −d is  not	specified,  LPDEST  is
		 unset,	 and  PRINTER  contains	 a  value  that is not a valid
		 device or destination name.

       TZ	 Determine the	timezone  used	to  calculate  date  and  time
		 strings  displayed  in	 the  lp banner page, if any. If TZ is
		 unset or null, an unspecified default timezone shall be used.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
       Default.

STDOUT
       The lp utility shall write a request ID to the standard output,	unless
       −s  is specified. The format of the message is unspecified. The request
       ID can be used on systems supporting the historical cancel  and	lpstat
       utilities.

STDERR
       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES
       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
       None.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values shall be returned:

	0    All input files were processed successfully.

       >0    No output device was available, or an error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
       The  pr and fold utilities can be used to achieve reasonable formatting
       for the implementation's default page size.

       A conforming application can use one of the file operands only with the
       −c  option  or  if  the	file is publicly readable and guaranteed to be
       available at the time of printing. This is because  POSIX.1‐2008	 gives
       the  implementation the freedom to queue up the request for printing at
       some later time by a different process that might not be able to access
       the file.

EXAMPLES
	1. To print file file:

	       lp −c file

	2. To print multiple files with headers:

	       pr file1 file2 | lp

RATIONALE
       The  lp utility was designed to be a basic version of a utility that is
       already available in  many  historical  implementations.	 The  standard
       developers considered that it should be implementable simply as:

	   cat "$@" > /dev/lp

       after appropriate processing of options, if that is how the implementa‐
       tion chose to do it and if exclusive access could be granted  (so  that
       two users did not write to the device simultaneously).  Although in the
       future the standard developers may add other options to	this  utility,
       it  should  always  be  able to execute with no options or operands and
       send the standard input to an unspecified output device.

       This volume of POSIX.1‐2008 makes  no  representations  concerning  the
       format of the printed output, except that it must be ``human-readable''
       and ``non-volatile''.  Thus, writing by default to a disk or tape drive
       or  a  display  terminal	 would not qualify. (Such destinations are not
       prohibited when −d dest, LPDEST, or PRINTER are used, however.)

       This volume of POSIX.1‐2008 is worded such that a  ``print  job''  con‐
       sisting	of multiple input files, possibly in multiple copies, is guar‐
       anteed to print so that any one file is not  intermixed	with  another,
       but  there  is  no statement that all the files or copies have to print
       out together.

       The −c option may imply a spooling operation, but this is not required.
       The  utility  can be implemented to wait until the printer is ready and
       then wait until it is finished. Because of that, there is no attempt to
       define a queuing mechanism (priorities, classes of output, and so on).

       On  some	 historical systems, the request ID reported on the STDOUT can
       be used to later cancel or find the status of a request using utilities
       not defined in this volume of POSIX.1‐2008.

       Although the historical System V lp and BSD lpr utilities have provided
       similar functionality, they used different names	 for  the  environment
       variable	 specifying  the  destination  printer.	 Since the name of the
       utility here is lp, LPDEST (used by the System V lp utility) was	 given
       precedence  over	 PRINTER (used by the BSD lpr utility). Since environ‐
       ments of users frequently contain one or the  other  environment	 vari‐
       able,  the  lp  utility	is required to recognize both. If this was not
       done, many applications would send output to unexpected output  devices
       when users moved from system to system.

       Some have commented that lp has far too little functionality to make it
       worthwhile. Requests have proposed additional options  or  operands  or
       both that added functionality. The requests included:

	*  Wording requiring the output to be ``hardcopy''

	*  A requirement for multiple printers

	*  Options for supporting various page-description languages

       Given  that  a compliant system is not required to even have a printer,
       placing further restrictions upon the behavior of the  printer  is  not
       useful. Since hardcopy format is so application-dependent, it is diffi‐
       cult, if not impossible, to select a reasonable subset of functionality
       that should be required on all compliant systems.

       The term unspecified is used in this section in lieu of implementation-
       defined as most known implementations would not be able to make defini‐
       tive statements in their conformance documents; the existence and usage
       of printers is very dependent on how the system	administrator  config‐
       ures each individual system.

       Since  the  default  destination,  device type, queuing mechanisms, and
       acceptable forms of input are all  unspecified,	usage  guidelines  for
       what a conforming application can do are as follows:

	*  Use	the  command  in  a pipeline, or with −c, so that there are no
	   permission problems and the files can be safely  deleted  or	 modi‐
	   fied.

	*  Limit output to text files of reasonable line lengths and printable
	   characters and include no device-specific  formatting  information,
	   such	 as a page description language. The meaning of ``reasonable''
	   in this context can only be answered as a quality-of-implementation
	   issue,  but it should be apparent from historical usage patterns in
	   the industry and the locale. The pr and fold utilities can be  used
	   to  achieve	reasonable formatting for the default page size of the
	   implementation.

       Alternatively, the application can arrange its installation in  such  a
       way  that  it  requires the system administrator or operator to provide
       the appropriate information on lp options and environment variable val‐
       ues.

       At  a minimum, having this utility in this volume of POSIX.1‐2008 tells
       the industry that conforming applications require a means to print out‐
       put  and	 provides at least a command name and LPDEST routing mechanism
       that can be used for discussions between vendors, application  develop‐
       ers,  and users. The use of ``should'' in the DESCRIPTION of lp clearly
       shows the intent of the standard developers, even if they  cannot  man‐
       date that all systems (such as laptops) have printers.

       This  volume of POSIX.1‐2008 does not specify what the ownership of the
       process performing the writing to the output device may be.  If	−c  is
       not  used, it is unspecified whether the process performing the writing
       to the output device has permission to  read  file  if  there  are  any
       restrictions  in	 place on who may read file until after it is printed.
       Also, if −c is not used, the results of	deleting  file	before	it  is
       printed are unspecified.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       mailx

       The  Base  Definitions  volume  of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment
       Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines

COPYRIGHT
       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in  electronic  form
       from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
       -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX),	The  Open  Group  Base
       Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electri‐
       cal and Electronics Engineers,  Inc  and	 The  Open  Group.   (This  is
       POSIX.1-2008  with  the	2013  Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the
       event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
       The  Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
       is the referee document. The original Standard can be  obtained	online
       at http://www.unix.org/online.html .

       Any  typographical  or  formatting  errors that appear in this page are
       most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
       files  to  man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.ker‐
       nel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group		     2013				LP(1P)
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