[Mailman-Developers] fqdn_listname - is it strict in what type of input it accepts?

[Barry Warsaw]

On Feb 17, 2015, at 11:48 AM, Andrew Stuart wrote:

>As I understand it, fqdn_listname is effectively the email address of a
>mailing list. i.e. testlist at example.org
>
>The RFC 2369 list-id is the same thing but with a dot instead of an @
>symbol. i.e. testlist.example.org

List-ID is actually defined in RFC 2919.

>My question: is Mailman strict about accepting only email addresses in
>fqdn_listname fields? Or does it also accept RFC 2369 list-id in
>fqdn_listname fields?
>
>I’m trying to wrap my head around some inconsistencies where some methods
>that use fqdn_listname seem to accept list-id, bt I can’t see how it possible
>to determine domain from a list-id, so how is it possible to accept either in
>a fqdn_listname field?

There is inconsistency, but I've slowly tried to consolidate things to the
following rules.

List-Id is used for identifying the list.  A list's List-Id will not change
even if the list is renamed.  $4 says the MAY but that it is not desirable,
and that an MUA SHOULD treat a different list identifier as a different list.

So in the APIs that are used to identify a list, I try to use list_id.  Note
that for historical reasons there are probably both REST and internal APIs
where this is not (yet) true.

The posting address, a.k.a. fqdn_listname is used to contact a mailing list.
It forms part of the RFC 2369 List-Post header.  Some REST APIs that used to
accept fqdn_listnames may now accept both that and a List-ID for backward
compatibility, but really List-ID should be used.  Eventually, we will stop
accepting an fqdn_listname where we really mean to identify a mailing.

In those cases, and e.g. for creating a list by POSTing to <api>/lists, yes,
the fqdn_listname must be a valid email address, FSVO valid.

Cheers,
-Barry