Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 660518
textonly filter won't work as a pipe with copies=1
Last modified: 2012-02-20 22:09:47 EST
Description of problem: If the textonly filter is used as a pipe (i.e. no filename is specified on the command line, and the number of copies is "1", then it fails. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): cups-1.3.7-11.el5_4.3 How reproducible: 100% Steps to Reproduce: $ export PPD=/usr/share/cups/model/textonly.ppd $ cat /etc/fstab | /usr/lib/cups/filter/textonly 1 me hi 1 "" (the "export PPD..." command isn't strictly necessary, but it eliminates an unrelated error message from grep) Actual results: /usr/lib/cups/filter/textonly: line 109: : No such file or directory Expected results: The contents of /etc/fstab. Additional info: This is a real-world problem. To enable printing of C-language source files on a text-only printer, I needed to add the line: application/x-csource text/plain 10 textonly to /etc/cups/local.convs, but then the textonly filter failed as described above. Line 31 in /usr/lib/cups/filter/textonly: if [ "$COPIES" -gt 1 ] && [ $# -lt 6 ]; then doesn't make sense to me. The purpose of that code block (lines 31-38) is to copy the input file to a temporary file so that the next code block (lines 40-50) can perform some LF->CRLF translation on the file. BUT ... the temporary file doesn't get created if the number of copies is 1. As a result, the sed command fails and no data is sent to the printer. It would seem to me that line 31 should read: if [ $# -lt 6 ]; then which would create the temp file regardless of the number of copies. Making the change above resolved the issue in my testing. This is also a problem in Fedora and RHEL 6.
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in the current release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Because the affected component is not scheduled to be updated in the current release, Red Hat is unfortunately unable to address this request at this time. Red Hat invites you to ask your support representative to propose this request, if appropriate and relevant, in the next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
(In reply to comment #0) > Actual results: > /usr/lib/cups/filter/textonly: line 109: : No such file or directory > ... > This is also a problem in Fedora and RHEL 6. I can confirm that I see this warning with cups-1.5.0 (F-16) and cups-1.4.2 (RHEL-6) but in RHEL-5 I see: sed: can't read : No such file or directory Maybe you posted the warning from RHEL-6 ? However your suggested solution fixes the problem. Have you ever reported this upstream ? Are you going to do that ? Do you want me to do that ?
Hmmm . . . yes, it appears I might have copied the wrong error message. In RHEL 5, I get: sed: can't read : No such file or directory and in RHEL 6 I get: /usr/lib/cups/filter/textonly: line 109: : No such file or directory I haven't yet reported this upstream (or cloned this for RHEL 6 and Fedora), but will do so now.
Actually, it looks like the textonly filter doesn't exist upstream. It was added by Red Hat.
Since the problem described in this bug report should be resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated files, follow the link below. If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012-0302.html