10 May
2001
10 May
'01
7:06 p.m.
"JCL" == J C Lawrence <claw@kanga.nu> writes:
JCL> If you touch the DBM file you need to touch the aliases file,
JCL> always. Otherwise you're in the position of actively working
JCL> to deceive admins in regard to the state of their mail system
JCL> (what they can see says one thing, what they can't see says
JCL> another, and they have to have specialised knowledge to know
JCL> that there's likely to be a difference).
>> What I don't want to do is use the plain text file as the
>> canonical database file for integration with the MTA. I fear
>> the grepping and cut-n-paste that would have to be done
>> programmatically would be too fragile.
JCL> Hardly.
JCL> Put a comment block at the top of the file stating that this
JCL> file is maintained by the CGI at URL <whatever>. Include a
JCL> warning that manual editing *might* break supports for this
JCL> file format. Have newlist and the CGI always use the same
JCL> formating. As all you are relly interested in are the
JCL> ^listname:[ \t]*.* lines, they're easy enough to match and
JCL> edit.
>> And then you still have to get newaliases run, which poses
>> problems in its own right.
JCL> Nope. You do both: touch the text file AND the DBM.I think I see what you're getting at. Agreed, with the caveat that if the human operator modifies the text file and regens the db file, any f*ckups are outside Mailman's responsibilities to fix (although I'll do my best to fail gracefully).
-Barry