Arch Linux

whacath

Member

Registered: 2009-05-26

Posts: 283

watch-directory for your printer?

I just discovered flexget a program that can (if i understand i correctly) download something, for example xkcd automatically every time a new issue comes out and put the comic in a directory.

Now i got an idea about this. A watch directory for your printer. Everytime something is put in this watch directory it get printed out.

Anyone of you guys aware of such a utility capable of this or want to script one?

Think about the possibilities! everytime a new issue of xkcd or ALM get published it is automatically printed out for you.

I would buy a dedicated toilet-printer ;D

Last edited by whacath (2010-05-25 03:00:43)

dmz

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2008-08-27

Posts: 881

Website

Re: watch-directory for your printer?

Simple.

Watch the dir with inotify. Whenever a new file is created, print it.

I have no printer I can use for testing though.

@whacath: tjockis?

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ls++ | LS_COLORS project | file management in vim | tons of utilities | configs | japh.se

falconindy

Developer

From: New York, USA

Registered: 2009-10-22

Posts: 4,111

Website

Re: watch-directory for your printer?

#!/bin/sh

watchdir=/path/to/watchdir

inotifywait -qm --event CREATE --format %f "$watchdir" | while read file; do
  lpr "$watchdir/$file"
done

Of course you'd need some better logic than just throwing everything directly at lpr, but inotify is the way to go and it doesn't need to be much more complicated than this.

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blog | ±github

whacath

Member

Registered: 2009-05-26

Posts: 283

Re: watch-directory for your printer?

Cool! Thanks guys!

@dmz: du ja!