Filter interface for managing printer system information

Details Filter interface for managing printer system information Filter interface for managing printer system information

1997-11-21

2001-01-16

Hong, Stephen S. (Department: 2776)

Data processing: database and file management or data structures

Database design

Data structure types

C707S793000, C709S203000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06175839

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a filter interface between a filter and a server in a document printing system. In particular, this invention is directed to a filter interface that allows a filter to send extracted attribute information to a server.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 1
shows an overview of the flow of document data and attribute information in a printing system. When the client
110
sends a print request to a server
120
, the client
110
sends a document data package
200
, as shown in FIG.
2
. The document data package
200
includes master document data
220
, which includes the text of the document, and document attribute data
210
, which includes attribute information about the document. For example, the document attribute data
210
includes paper size (in this case, A3), the number of images printed onto one page (in this case, 2-up) as shown in FIG.
2
. Other attribute information may include client source, page numbers, user name, job name, etc.
When the server
120
receives the print request, the server
120
stores the document attribute data
210
into the attribute database
130
. The server
120
then invokes the filter
140
. The server
120
then sends the master document data
220
and the requested attribute information (the document attribute data
210
may be included) to the filter
140
.
After filtering, the filter
140
sends modified document data back to the server
120
. The server
120
then sends the modified document data to the printer
160
as a print job. After completing the print job, the printer
160
sends a report back to the server
120
. After the server
120
receives the report from the printer
160
, the server
120
extracts document attribute information needed for the account log
150
from the attribute database
130
and writes that information to the account log
150
.
FIG. 3
shows the interaction between the server
120
and the filter
140
. The process of the server
120
is different from that of the filter
140
. The filter is registered with the server
120
using a filter definition
310
. The server
120
invokes the filter
140
, based on the command element of the filter definition
310
. When the server
120
invokes the filter
140
, the server
120
checks the command element in the filter definition
310
. If some attribute names (in this case, number-up and content orientation) are found in the command element, the server
120
sends the attribute information corresponding to each attribute name to the filter
140
as the argument of the command. Thus, the filter
140
gets the attribute information needed to perform the operation from the command line found in the filter definition
310
. The input data and output data are sent and received using a pipeline between the server
120
and the filter
140
. The filter
140
gets the master document data
220
from the standard input and sends the modified document data to the standard output.
According to the above description, the filter
140
can get attribute information (e.g., number-up, content orientation, etc.) indicated in the command element of the filter definition
310
. However, the filter
140
has no way to send attribute information that has been extracted in the filtering operation back to the server
120
.
In addition, all attribute information which needs to be written to the account log
150
is not always included in the attribute information
210
that the client
110
sends to the server
120
or the attribute database
130
. Some needed attribute information (e.g., medium-size) may be embedded in the master document data
220
. However, the filter
140
does not have any way to send the extracted attribute information to the server
120
or to the attribute database
130
. Therefore, some attribute information may not be properly written into the account log
150
. Thus, the account log
150
cannot keep the exact attribute information regarding the print job and the document.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention provides a filter interface that allows the filter to extract document attribute information from the master document data and send the extracted attributes to the server. The server can then store the received document attribute information into an attribute database.
In this arrangement, modification of extracted document attribute information for the attribute database is performed by the server and not by the filter. This provides an added measure of security by not permitting third parties to access the attribute database through the filter. After the document is printed, the server gets the requested attribute information for accounting purposes from the database and writes the attributes into the account log. The account log can keep the exact attribute information regarding the print job and the document.


REFERENCES:
patent: 5475805 (1995-12-01), Murata
patent: 5517316 (1996-05-01), Hube
patent: 5537550 (1996-07-01), Russell et al.
patent: 5537626 (1996-07-01), Kraslavsky et al.
patent: 5935262 (1999-08-01), Barrett et al.

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