Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ginosko!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!tut!tukki!sakkinen
From: sakkinen@tukki.jyu.fi (Markku Sakkinen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: How do you count the number of pages in a postscript document?
Message-ID: <1517@tukki.jyu.fi>
Date: 16 Oct 89 07:59:39 GMT
References: <1955@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu>
Reply-To: sakkinen@jytko.jyu.fi (Markku Sakkinen)
          SAKKINEN@FINJYU.bitnet (alternative)
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Lines: 26

In article <1955@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu> seth@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu (Seth Strumph) writes:
>
>does anyone have (or know of) a program that will count the number of
>printed pages that an arbitrary postscript file (including those
                       ^^^^^^^^^
>created on a macintosh) will generate?

Theoretically impossible!
Since PostScript is a "Turing-equivalent" language (i.e. a full-powered
programming language), even the termination of an _arbitrary_ PS programme
(file) is undecidable.
The only way to find out is a rather complete emulator or interpreter.
And you still have problems with possibly nonterminating programmes.

However, PostScript code generated by text processors and similar
application software should be very well-behaving.
Indeed, if it conforms to the structuring conventions recommended
by Adobe, such things as the number of pages are given in special
comments at the beginning or end of the file.

Markku Sakkinen
Department of Computer Science
University of Jyvaskyla (a's with umlauts)
Seminaarinkatu 15
SF-40100 Jyvaskyla (umlauts again)
Finland