root / pkipplib / trunk / README @ 3001

pkipplib : IPP and CUPS support for Python

$Id$

# (c) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Jerome Alet <alet@librelogiciel.com>
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
# 
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
# 
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

=======================================================================

This software is a Python library which can prepare IPP requests with
the help of a somewhat high level API. These requests can then be sent
to an IPP printer or print server (e.g. CUPS).

This library can also parse IPP answers received, and create high
level Python objects from them.

Both of these actions can be done through an IPPRequest class
and its instance methods.

Finally, a CUPS class can be leveraged to easily deal with CUPS 
print servers.

All of this library being written in the Python language, there's
no need to link the code with the CUPS' API, which makes it
independant of the CUPS version being installed.

=======================================================================

Installation :
--------------

        1 - Grab the latest version of this library from :
        
            http://www.pykota.com/software/pkipplib/
            
        2 - Extract the tarball :    
        
            $ tar -zxf pkipplib-x.yy.tar.gz
            
        3 - Install the Python module :    
        
            $ cd pkipplib-x.yy
            $ python setup.py install

NB : for the installation script to work, you need to install
the python-dev package on your system first.

=======================================================================

Examples :
----------

--- CUT ---
# Parsing.py    EXAMPLE
from pkipplib import pkipplib

# Read IPP datas from a CUPS job control file
myfile = open("/var/spool/cups/c00155")
ippdatas = myfile.read()
myfile.close()

# Parse these datas
request = pkipplib.IPPRequest(ippdatas)
request.parse()

# Print the whole result as a string
print request

# Access one of the job's attributes directly 
print request.job["job-name"]
--- CUT ---


--- CUT ---
# Building.py   EXAMPLE
from pkipplib import pkipplib

# Create a CUPS_GET_DEFAULT request
request = pkipplib.IPPRequest(operation_id=pkipplib.CUPS_GET_DEFAULT)
request.operation["attributes-charset"] = ("charset", "utf-8")
request.operation["attributes-natural-language"] = ("naturalLanguage", "en-us")

# Get the request as binary datas
ippdatas = request.dump()

# Parse these datas back
newrequest = pkipplib.IPPRequest(ippdatas)
newrequest.parse()

# Of course, the result of parsing matches what we created before.
print newrequest.operation["attributes-natural-language"]
--- CUT ---


--- CUT ---
# CUPS' API
from pkipplib import pkipplib

# Create a CUPS client instance
# cups = pkipplib.CUPS(url="http://server:631", username="john", password="blah!")
cups = pkipplib.CUPS()

# High level API : retrieve info about job 3 :
answer = cups.getJobAttributes(3)
print answer.job["document-format"]
# That's all folks !

# Lower level API :
request = cups.newRequest(pkipplib.IPP_GET_PRINTER_ATTRIBUTES)
request.operation["printer-uri"] = ("uri", 
                                    cups.identifierToURI("printers", "HP2100"))
for attribute in ("printer-uri-supported",                                     
                  "printer-type",
                  "member-uris") :
    # IMPORTANT : here, despite the unusual syntax, we append to              
    # the list of requested attributes :
    request.operation["requested-attributes"] = ("nameWithoutLanguage", attribute)
    
# Sends this request to the CUPS server    
answer = cups.doRequest(request)

# Print the answer as a string of text
print answer
--- CUT ---

=======================================================================

Command line tools :

  pkipplib currently includes the following command line tools :
  
    * pksubscribe : can create or delete IPP subscriptions.
    
          See pksubscribe --help for details.
        
          examples :
          
            $ pksubscribe --cups http://localhost:631 \
                          --events printer-added,printer-deleted \
                          --recipient mynotifier \
                          --duration 0
                          
            $ pksubscribe --username root \              
                          --password HacKMe \
                          --delete 34 58 98
                          
    * samplenotifier : can handle printer-added and printer-deleted
      notifications and automatically create or remove printers
      from PyKota's database (just adapt the code for other needs).
      
      samplenotifier is present in the notifiers/ directory, but
      won't be installed automatically. You must put it into
      CUPS' notifier directory, e.g. /usr/lib/cups/notifier/

  In the future more command line tools will be included.
  
=======================================================================

Please email bug reports, enhancements or comments to : alet@librelogiciel.com