BARR/Print Ficon requires a standard record-oriented 3211 or 4245 input data stream from the mainframe with a maximum print record size of 4096 bytes.
Because line printer emulation does not provide an obvious mechanism to separate print jobs, you must configure BARR/Print Ficon to divide the jobs into hard-copy printouts. The following methods are available for breaking the data stream into discrete print jobs. We recommend using all of the options.
The first, and perhaps most useful, job separation mechanism is by banner recognition. To use this feature, you must configure BARR/Print Ficon to recognize banner pages from the host. You can use header and trailer banner pages. During configuration, you specify a range of lines and text strings. BARR/Print Ficon looks for these strings on specified banner page lines at specified columns. After BARR/Print Ficon finds a banner page, that page becomes either the first (header) or last (trailer) page of the print job.
If BARR/Print Ficon does not encounter header banner pages at the beginning of a print job, it assumes the job has begun and begins looking for trailer banner pages. Because the software did not identify any header pages, job parameters are not extracted. If you select to remove headers after processing on the Ficon Job Separation tab, BARR/Print Ficon does not remove data at the beginning of the job because it did not identify a header.
Ideally, you will configure BARR/Print Ficon to recognize both headers and trailers. If you use only header banner pages to separate jobs, BARR/Print Ficon can determine only where a job begins, not where it ends, particularly in the case of the last job received. BARR/Print Ficon processes the data stream more efficiently when you specify trailer pages.
The software checks every received page for banners, because it cannot predict when they will occur. Thus, it is more efficient to specify a specific line on the page to check for a banner than it is to search a range of lines or every line on every page.
If job separation by banner recognition is enabled:
Each job received on the channel must begin with a banner page that matches the format of the banner configured within BARR/Print Ficon (that is, a consistently located search string, etc.).
The search string used to detect the banner must be on the first page of the banner.
Every banner page must be preceded by either a “skip to channel one” channel command or an FCB.
If trailer detection is enabled, each trailer must end with either a “skip to channel one” channel command or an FCB.
FCB formatting (skip to channel) is ignored on banner pages for both banner recognition and field extraction.
If the only separation method enabled is header and trailer recognition, a trailer must be present in all jobs for job separation to occur correctly. Once a job has started, the job will not end until a trailer is recognized. If separation by FCB or timeout is enabled, job separation will occur when an FCB is received or when a timeout occurs.
If data extraction is enabled:
Job separation by banner recognition must be enabled and configured as described above.
Field extraction can only occur from header pages. Extraction from trailer pages is not allowed.
The data to be extracted must be located in a consistent location relative to the search string used to detect the banner page. For page 1, the line number is relative to the line on which the first header page matching string was found. For page 2 or greater, the value is relative to the top of that page.
The second job separation mechanism is by FCB. If an FCB is received, the current job will be closed after all print data preceding the FCB has been sent to the IP socket. The FCB will be included with the job that follows it in the data stream. Separation by FCB will occur unconditionally, regardless of banner job separation settings.
The third job separation mechanism is by timeout. If a timeout occurs, the current job will be closed after all print data preceding the timeout has been sent to the IP socket. If only header banner pages are used to separate jobs, BARR/Print Ficon can determine only where a job begins, not where it ends. In this case, BARR/Print Ficon can use the timeout mechanism to close the job. Separation by timeout will occur unconditionally, regardless of banner job separation settings.