Printing through PHP on a UNIX system

Hello, I'm a *novice* at both using PHP and UNIX, and came across a
problem while trying to modify an ex-coworkers PHP code for printing.


The original script sent one huge print job to our printing server,
which worked fine since we weren't printing duplex. We'd like to now
split the jobs up and send them individually, which we easily achieved
using a while loop to send each job.


The problem is that since the printer is in duplex mode now, if you
have two jobs which are 1 *** each they will print them each on one
side of the paper. Obviously not a good thing for two seperate bills.

My questions is that is there a PHP function/variable that we can test
which will tell us if there is a queue to print, or if the printer is
free of jobs? I am mirroring a similar UNIX specific post in the UNIX
newsgroup, but was wondering if there was a PHP-specific answer to this
problem.


Best regards,

Chris Bennett, NapaNet

.