Specifying PRINTER Files

To indicate that you want your program to access printer files, specify PRINTER as the device name for the file in a File Description specification. Each file must have a unique file name. A maximum of eight printer files is allowed per program.

PRINTER files can be either externally-described or program-described. Overflow indicators OA-OG and OV, fetch overflow, space/skip entries, and the PRTCTL keyword are not allowed for an externally-described PRINTER file. See the IBM Rational® Development Studio for i: ILE RPG Reference for the valid output specification entries for an externally-described file.

For an externally-described PRINTER file, you can specify the DDS keyword INDARA. If you try to use this keyword for a program-described PRINTER file, you get a run-time error.

You can use the CL command CRTPRTF (Create Print File) to create a printer file, or you can use the IBM®-supplied file names.

For information on the CRTPRTF command, see the CL and APIs section of the Programming category in IBM Documentation at this web site: https://www.ibm.com/docs/i.

For information on IBM-supplied file names and the DDS for externally-described printer files, refer to the Db2 for i section of the Database and File Systems category in IBM Documentation at this web site: https://www.ibm.com/docs/i.

The file operation codes that are valid for a PRINTER file are WRITE, OPEN, CLOSE, and FEOD. For a complete description of these operation codes, see the IBM Rational Development Studio for i: ILE RPG Reference.