NCARV_SPOOL(5NCARG)

💖 NCARV_SPOOL 💖 (section 5 of the NCARG manual, bestie)

okay so welcome to the spooled device configuration table page for ictrans, the interactive metafile translator ✨ this whole thing lives in the NCAR Graphics manual and it's literally just a lil file that tells your translator where to send stuff. no cap.

---

🌸 NAME 🌸

ncarv_spool — the spooled device configuration table for the interactive metafile translator ictrans 🎀

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

$NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/ncarv_spool
~/.ncarv_spool

---

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so the ncarv_spool file is where all the definitions for spooled devices that ictrans is gonna use live. every single definition describes one rule for sending a set of metafile frames off to a spooled device. it's giving matchmaker but for frames and printers 🫶

each entry is one line, and it looks exactly like this:

alias_name : translator_args : filter_chain

let's break it down bestie:

• alias_name — an identifier that's unique to the file. it's the alias you reference the definition by. think of it as the entry's main character name 👑
• translator_args — a list of valid ctrans command line arguments that get passed to ctrans. the metafile frames get translated by ctrans, and then the output of that translation is made available for further processing, exactly as the rest of the spooler definition says. the way that it just hands off the output… iconic.
• filter_chain — a set of simple commands separated by the UNIX pipe symbol |. filter_chain can be terminated by the UNIX file redirection symbols > or >> followed by filename. output from ctrans is made available to the processes defined in filter_chain. pipeline girlies rise 🔥

also! a pound-sign (#) as the first character means it's a comment line, and it gets ignored by the routines that read this file. so go ahead and leave yourself lil notes, you deserve it 💖

and the ordering?? the order of entries in ncarv_spool is important. if an alias name conflict happens, the last definition encountered wins. any previous definition for that same alias name gets yeeted, discarded, gone 💀

---

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

here's an example ncarv_spool file, and honestly? she's a slay.

• the first entry describes a device named postscript. when postscript is named as the spooling device, metafile frames are translated by ctrans into the format described by the ps.mono graphcap. the font font1 is used for CGM text elements. and the result of that translation? piped straight to lpr 🖨️
• the second entry is named dicomed. the dicomed entry specifies that metafile frames will be rasterized at a 1857 by 1183 pixel resolution and output in X11 xwd format. the result of that rasterization is piped to a program x11tonrif, which in turn sends its output to a program called rasttg.
• in the third example the final output is directed to a file called sunfile ☀️

#
# example ncarv_spool file
#
postscript : -d ps.mono -f font1 : | lpr -Pprinter0
dicomed : -d xwd -geom 1857x1183 : | x11tonrif | rasttg -tc
sunraster : -d xwd -geom 1152x900 : | x11tosun > sunfile

---

🦋 ENVIRONMENT 🦋

• NCARG_ROOT — path to root of NCAR Graphics installation.
• NCARG_LIB — if set, this variable contains the path to the installed NCAR Graphics libraries. NCARG_LIB overrides NCARG_ROOT. she said "i'm the boss now" 💅

---

🎀 FILES 🎀

• $NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/ncarv_spool — System spooler configuration file
• $HOME/.ncarv_spool — User spooler configuration file

---

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

ctrans(1NCARG), ictrans(1NCARG)

Hardcopy: NCAR Graphics Fundamentals, UNIX Version

---

👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright (C) 1987-2009 University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

The use of this Software is governed by a License Agreement.

---

and that's the whole page bestie, no notes, we ate 💖✨ this lil gem is from the NCARG crew (that's the manual name, iykyk) and it's dated January 1993 — vintage but still slaying fr fr 🎀🦋🌸