[Mailman-Users] MySQL?

[Kevin McCann]

On Fri, 2003-05-30 at 10:30, Angel Gabriel wrote:
> I remember reading somewhere that mailman can operate with a MySQL
> backend? If that is so, they it should be possible to develop a diffrent
> front end, to interface with users, add users to mailman etc etc.
> 
> Is there any truth to this??


If this was true I'd be doing a breakdance right about now.  ;-)

Currently Mailman does not operate directly with a MySQL database. I
know Barry has a few ideas up his sleeve with regard to opening things
up a bit but I don't know how he sees MySQL fitting in, if at all.

In my ideal world, fundamental data would be able to be in a SQL
database:

- user info
- archived messages
- list configurations
- site configurations

and possibly:

- incoming queue
- outgoing queue
- logs 


I don't anticipate this in Mailman in the very near future so I am
currently working on a MLMI (mailing list manager interface) API for
PHP. The Mailman section of the API will be a collection of functions
that execute Mailman commands and return results. Like so:

mlmi_settype("Mailman");
mlmi_getlists();
mlmi_getmembers("$listname");
mlmi_getconfig("$listname");
mlmi_newlist("$listname","$adminemail","$adminpass","$security");

The mlmi_getlists function, for example, would just execute
bin/list_lists, parse the results, and return an array available to any
PHP script that calls it. 

Conceivably, mlmi functions could be used to populate a MySQL database
(I know, it would be much nicer if there was just one data source).

This may all seem a bit insane but it seems to be the only way I can do
what I need to do for the project I'm working on.


- Kevin