SET PDSETUP, _GenPD, _PDriver, _PDSetup, Set(“PDSetup”)

Hacker’s Guide to Visual FoxPro
An irreverent look at how Visual FoxPro really works. Tells you the inside scoop on every command, function, property, event and method of Visual FoxPro.

`SET PDSETUP`, _GenPD, _PDriver, _PDSetup, Set(“PDSetup”)

These three system memory variables and one command set up a pretty sophisticated printing system under earlier DOS versions of FoxPro. While they may still be usable in Visual FoxPro, we are hard-pressed to think of why you might want to use them.

Usage

_GENPD = cGenerator
cGenerator = _GENPD
_PDRIVER = cDriverName
cDriverName = _PDRIVER
_PDSETUP = cSavedSetup
cSavedSetup = _PDSETUP
SET PDSETUP TO cSavedSetup
cSavedSetup = SET("PDSETUP")

Parameter	Value	Meaning
cGenerator	Character	The name of the program to run when creating or changing a printer driver setting.
cDriverName	Character	The name of the program or C routine (PLB/FLL) built into Genpd.APP used to perform the actual row-by-row, character-by-character printing. PS.PRG was used for PostScript printing, while Driver.PRG was used for all others.
cSavedSetup	Character	The name of a previously defined printer setup, which could store information on the printer brand and model (and consequently the language), margins, font sizes and orientation. Setting PDSetup to a single blank character brings up the printer driver setup dialog.

Using these capabilities within Visual FoxPro is depending on too much backward compatibility, in our opinion. Check out the Hacker’s Guide to Visual FoxPro 3.0 or some of the 2.x references in this book’s appendices if you need to transport stuff using these commands and settings to Visual FoxPro; don’t even consider using them there.