Occasionally lp cannot find my print file. Why?

[Stephen J. Friedl]

In article <1512 at anasaz.UUCP>, duane at anasaz.UUCP (Duane Morse) writes:
> Occasionally I try to enqueue a file for printing by
> 
> 	lp xxx
> 
> and lp comes back with a message saying that it cannot find "xxx". It
> also cannot find it when I specify the file by ./xxx. I end up having
> to cat the file and pipe it to lp. The file permissions are read/write
> for everybody.


This is probably under System V.  The lp command is usually setuid "lp"
and setgid "bin", so an inaccessible *parent* directory will yield one
of these "cannot access" messages.  Rather than cat the file and pipe it
to lp, do:

	lp < xxx

This misfeature is fixed in System V Release 3.2 (on the 3B2, at least).

     Steve

-- 
Stephen J. Friedl        3B2-kind-of-guy            friedl at vsi.com
V-Systems, Inc.        I speak for me only      attmail!vsi!friedl
Santa Ana, CA  USA       +1 714 545 6442    {backbones}!vsi!friedl
---------Nancy Reagan on Hawaiian musicians: "Just say Ho"--------