[Mailman-Developers] Creation/deletion of lists through-the-web

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "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