List additional CUPS printer information

Question

How to display printer information, such as printer description or printer location using command line tools?

lpstat -t lists printer names, classes and devices for printers, but it doesn't list printer description or location. Is there a way to get this information without using http or GUI interface?

Solution

You can obtain this information with lpstat -l -p printername.

[root@Valley ~]# lpstat -l -p zebra2
printer zebra2 is idle.  enabled since Tue Jun  8 15:50:35 2010
        Form mounted:
        Content types: any
        Printer types: unknown
        Description: Zebra 105SL in shipping
        Alerts: none
        Location: Shipping
        Connection: direct
        On fault: no alert
        After fault: continue
        Users allowed:
                (all)
        Forms allowed:
                (none)
        Banner required
        Charset sets:
                (none)
        Default pitch:
        Default page size:
        Default port settings:

Comments

[ewwhite]

I do not know, but you can check at cups.org and with your specific distribution of Linux.

[tresf]

Turns out it is. Exporting LANG=C does the trick to force en_US. If calling this command with Apple, an additional export SOFTWARE= (blank) needs to be provided to bypass the locale used by the desktop. Why mention this? If you are parsing the output of this command wight a script (e.g. grep "Description:"), forcing locale is a good idea, or else the logic could fail on a non-English desktop/terminal.