[Mailman-Users] defining topics

[Jim Tittsler]

On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 10:10:24AM -0700, Christopher Adams wrote:
> "To post on a given topic, you need to make sure that the Keywords: or 
> Subject: headers in a message match the regular expression for that topic."
> 
> It sounds like it is referring to the actual header portion of the 
> message.There obviously isn't a Keywords: header in the actual header of 
> the message. However, it goes on to say:

There *can* be a Keywords: header in the message headers.  This
occurs most commonly in messages gatewayed from news...
although I suppose you could have your Email client add one as
well.

> "By default, you can put a Keywords: section in the beginning of the 
> body of your message, but this can be configured by your list 
> admiinistrator."
> 
> I take that to mean that if  I define the topic with the Regular 
> Expression "Keywords: Licensing", that all I have to do to match the 
> topic is to compose my message body like this:
> 
> Keywords: Licensing
> 
> blah blah blah.

The Keywords: or Subject: psuedo headers need to appear within
the first topics_bodylines_limit of a text/plain message (or
the text/plain part of a multipart/alternative message).  By
default, it just looks at the first 5 lines of the body (but it
can be changed to scan all or none of the message looking for
the psuedo headers). The regular expression search is done in a
case insensitive way.  When a match is detected, the message
gets an X-Topics: header showing the matching topic name.

The regular expression should not be trying to match the
Keywords: or Subject: field name... only the "content" of those
headers, or "licensing" in your example.

> However, I don't receive the message. It is true that any address not 
> subscribed to any topic will receive all messages, so the message is 
> being delivered, just not to the address subscribed to the topic. I have 
> tried defining the regular expression as just "Licensing" and composing 
> my message with Licensing on the first line, but that doesn't work either.

If you are sending text/plain messages with the psuedo header
words starting in the first column, you might want to confirm
the value of the of topics_bodylines_limit for the list.  (Use
bin/withlist.)

> As with other Mailman "features", the documentation on this is pretty 
> cryptic. A simple regular expression should not be hard to match. I just 
> don't know what header labels to use when trying to match the topic in 
> the body of the message. Using the Subject line works, but some of my 
> lists mail to multiple topics and using the Subject field is not practical.

Subject:
Keywords:
 
-- 
Jim Tittsler             http://www.OnJapan.net/      GPG: 0x01159DB6
Python Starship          http://Starship.Python.net/
Ringo MUG Tokyo          http://www.ringo.net/rss.html