ok, still tryna print!

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Right then. I have the Printer module installed, and I am now trying to use it, with the following code:

use Printer;
 my    $prn = new Printer('linux' => 'lp', 
                        'MSWin32' => 'LPT1' );
 my  %data = $prn->list_printers;
print $data{name};
print $data{port};
[download]

The result of this is ARRAY(blah_address)ARRAY(blah_address2), which I know is a reference to an array. I try to get this data by adding

my @list = \$data{name};
print @list;
[download]

but this gives me SCALAR(blah_address3). Aaaargghh!!! What's going on? All I want is the data!

Also, how do I poll a network for available printers?

Any help would be much appreciated

Alex.

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Re: ok, still tryna print! by Ovid (Cardinal) on Aug 28, 2002 at 15:59 UTC
Reading through this module's documentation clarifies what's going on. `%printers = list_printers().` [download] This returns a hash of arrays listing all available printers. To get the arrays out of there, try this: `my @printers = @{ $data{name} }; my @ports = @{ $data{port} };` [download] Someone else will have to tackle the "poll a network" part of your question, though. Cheers, Ovid Join the Perlmonks Setiathome Group or just click on the the link and check out our stats.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: ok, still tryna print! by krisahoch (Deacon) on Aug 28, 2002 at 15:58 UTC
Alex, Try this `use Printer; use Data::Dumper; my $prn = new Printer('linux' => 'lp', 'MSWin32' => 'LPT1' ); my %data = $prn->list_printers; print Dumper %data;` [download] That should tell you what is stored in the hash, and give you the means to figure problems like this out in the future Data::Dumper has been an valuable tool for me. Kristofer A. Hoch	[reply] [d/l]