Hi guys, long time lurker, first time posting,

I would really appreciate if someone to help me solve this little issue I am having with a project I am working on; Basically it is a time and attendance system for my workplace. I have a Lampp (xampp) server running on ubuntu 9.04 and a modified 02 Joggler running on xubuntu 12 as the only client.

What I have done is setup a TM-88V reciept printer on the Joggler and shared it so the server can see it, what I need to do is when a user clicks the print button the reciept printer runs off a list, this part I can do however I wanted some advise on the best way to have the server print??,

I thought perhaps having php generate the text from sql and store it in a temp file, then use exec to lpr that file, I am trying to avoid any page generation or use prompt on the client side (as its a small touchscreen).

Any advise on the matter would be truly appreciated!

where is this print button located? is this in the menu of the browser or on the displayed page within the browser?
In the first case the client itself will try to print and the client need access to the printer. In the second case you can implement the print function on the server (by handling the events of that button)

It would be an element in a html page, most likely a hyperlink to a php page which would run the sql quieries,generate the textfile then do something like:
echo exec('cat thetextfile.txt > /dev/lp');

although the client side has the printer attached, it will never print by itself, its only for location effectivness. That and the networked version of the printer costs a fortune.

At first glance it should work. Have you tried printing a test file from the server yet? Any command executed will be local to the server not the client.

lpr -P Shared_printer_name test_file