spooleri

A spooler is a software component that manages data output to devices such as printers, modems, or fax machines. When a user sends a document to a printer, for instance, the spooler intercepts the data. It then places this data into a temporary storage area, often referred to as a spool file. This allows the user's application to continue its work without waiting for the slower peripheral device to finish processing the entire document.

The spooler then sends the data to the device at a rate that the device can handle. This process is known as spooling. It effectively creates a buffer, decoupling the speed of the sending application from the speed of the receiving device. This is particularly useful when multiple applications want to send data to the same device. The spooler can queue these requests, ensuring that each job is processed in an orderly fashion.

Spoolers often provide additional features. These can include the ability to pause, resume, or cancel print jobs. They may also allow users to reorder the print queue or specify the number of copies to be printed. The concept of spooling is also applied in other areas of computing, such as for handling network data or disk I/O operations, though the term "spooler" is most commonly associated with print management.