a2ps output incompatible with Adobe distiller

[Mark Duling]

Michael Williams <williams at astro.ox.ac.uk> on Tuesday, February 27, 2007
at 4:20 AM -0800 wrote:
>as described on
>http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.printing.a2ps.bugs/2583, there is a
>bug in a2ps that makes its postscript output incompatible with Adobe's
>distiller (and therefore OS X's Preview.app and its printing system). 
>
>e.g. do:
>
>$ sudo port install a2ps 
>$ echo "Test text" >> test.txt
>$ a2ps -o test.ps test.txt
>
>Then either open test.ps in Preview.app or run 
>
>$ pstopdf test.ps
>
>Which results in the error:
>
>%%[ Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: iso1dict; ErrorInfo: CharOffsets
>%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
>%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%
>pstopdf failed on file test.ps with error code -31000
>
>Shorter, less useful errors with the same origin result if you open
>test.ps in Preview.app or send a2ps's output straight to printer (omit
>-o test.ps).
>
>That post includes a fix, which I've applied (post-installation) to my
>MacPorts a2ps installation and confirmed working.
>
>a2ps itself is currently without a maintainer, so it seems unlikely that
>the proposed fix (or any other) will be picked up for inclusion in the
>gnu tree any time soon. 
>
>The a2ps port is also without a maintainer. Since this is a bug which
>makes a2ps of extremely limited use on OS X, is the fix worth including
>in MacPorts? I am completely new to MacPorts (migrated from Fink a week
>ago), so I am certain that someone more experienced could add this patch
>to the a2ps Portfile in five minutes. If no one has the time, I'd be
>happy to take a look at what's involved myself (pointers welcome).

Michael,

It would be great if you could create the patch and pick up
maintainership.  Making a patch is easy, Just download manaully the
tarball the port uses, make a backup copy of the file to be changed, make
the changes, and diff the old against the new.

cd ap2s-x.xx
cp file file.org
edit file
diff -u file.org file >patch-file

Now you've got a patch.  Now add the line:

patchfiles   patch-file

to the portfile, and make your address the maintainer if you wish, and
then do the same to the portfile.

diff -u Portfile.org Portfile >Portfile.diff

Now make a trac ticket and submit both patch files and that's it.  If no
one notices it you could ping the list.

Mark