I still think that what I want to do is not a great departure from what many folks might like a mailing list system to do. I have a input text box on a web page where viewers can fill in their email address if they want to be notified when the page changes. My simple perl script appends their email address to a flat file that has one email address per line. I'd like to be able to use this file of email addresses as the distribution list for SmartList. However, I'd like SmartList to handle the bounces. I'd also like to be able to have users subscribe and unsubscribe directly to the -request address. My perl script wouldn't "care" if another program, such as SmartList, were also adding and deleting lines.
I didn't realize that this was asking a lot. The dist file and my flat file are in the same format. I can give the flat file any permissions it needs. To make my simple "append this email address to the file" perl script into a full-functioned emailer is more programming than I want.
Do other folks use SmartList to handle a task like this, or is there some other solution that is better suited?
Thanks for your suggestions.
-Kevin Zembower
----- E. Kevin Zembower Unix Administrator Johns Hopkins University/Center for Communications Programs 111 Market Place, Suite 310 Baltimore, MD 21202 410-659-6139
Charlie Summers charlie@lofcom.com 06/18/01 02:25PM >>>
At 12:01 PM -0400 6/18/01, KEVIN ZEMBOWER is rumored to have typed:
It is with great trepidation that I send this message to the list again. Does no one use SmartList in the way that I want to?
I'd seriously doubt it, since you say you are not _using_ SmartList to manage your dist file, and yet you seem to want SmartList to handle your bounces. Doesn't make a lick of sense to me at all, which is why I think you're unlikely to get much help - kinda oxymoronic, eh?
I'm trying to do something unorthodox with SmartList. My distribution list is kept in a flat file by another program that I have to continue to use.
Then I'd suggest you redirect any bounce messages off to the program that is managing the "flat file" and write your own routines in the "flat file" manager (I am assuming you're refering to a flat-file database manager, but I could be wrong, and frankly it doesn't much matter) to handle the bounces. Either SmartList manages the distribution list, or your "flat file" program does. Seems to me that having both thumbs in the pie is a recipe for disaster...and trying to get SmartList to handle bounces when you admit it _doesn't_ manage the dist file is just silly.
Charlie
_______________________________________________ Smartlist mailing list Smartlist@lists.RWTH-Aachen.DE http://MailMan.RWTH-Aachen.DE/mailman/listinfo/smartlist
"KEVIN ZEMBOWER" KZEMBOWER@jhuccp.org writes:
I still think that what I want to do is not a great departure from what many folks might like a mailing list system to do. I have a input text box on a web page where viewers can fill in their email address if they want to be notified when the page changes. My simple perl script appends their email address to a flat file that has one email address per line. I'd like to be able to use this file of email addresses as the distribution list for SmartList. However, I'd like SmartList to handle the bounces. I'd also like to be able to have users subscribe and unsubscribe directly to the -request address. My perl script wouldn't "care" if another program, such as SmartList, were also adding and deleting lines.
Let's turn your question around: why isn't your perl script following SmartList dist file format? It should 'obviously' never remove anyone above the "(Only addresses...)" line; it should not alter that line; it add new addresses at the bottom of the file; it **MUST** follow SmartList's locking convention.
Altering your perl script it almost certainly simpler and *safer* than trying to change SmartList's conventions. Those rules are, after all, coded into most of the scripts and rcfiles that comes with SmartList.
BTW: can you tell your mailer to wrap the text of your paragraphs? You're sending message with lines that are more than 700 characters long! Write too long a paragraph and your message will go over the 1000 character limit in rfc 822 (and now rfc 2822), at which point it'll either be bounced, dropped, or mutilated by many MTAs and MUAs.
Philip Guenther
At 4:37 PM -0400 6/18/01, KEVIN ZEMBOWER is rumored to have typed:
My simple perl script appends their email address to a flat file that has one email address per line.
Why don't you have that perl script simply email a subscription request to SmartList, then it doesn't _have_ to muck directly with the dist list? Good grief, I think it's safe to suggest that we've all been using web forms for subscriptions for a while now, and although there _are_ other, more convoluted ways, this is the easiest and least amount of work. (Frankly, I think a bunch of us have, at one time or another, written our own web-based subscription routines almost as a "right of passage," only to later find a couple floating around the Net that are ready for use, including MailServ off the top of my head. But honest, having perl send email is just as simple as having it write to a file, so you could easily alter your existing script within a few minutes without having to modify SmartList's bounce handling.)
What confused me was your earlier posting suggesting that, "My distribution list is kept in a flat file by another program that I have to continue to use," when in fact you certainly _don't_ need your perl script to muck with the database directly, and can _easily_ modify it to allow SmartList to handle subs as well as unsubs. And, natch, this aviods all your permission problems completely, since the SmartList user is the only one who needs to directly write to the dist file. I thought you were using some external process, like mySQL, to maintain your subscription database with additional subscriber information and such - had I realized, I would have suggested this simpler and more direct route earlier.
BTW, this will also allow SmartList, when properly configured with the "confirm" routines, to confirm your opt-IN subscriptions, avoiding having your list used in mail-bomb attempts, and possibly having your posts to the list reported as spam. Just a suggestion, though...not my server. Just be prepared for problems down the road if you don't allow for subscription confirmation, and should explain why I am NOT recommending that you email subscribe X-Commands to your SmartList install.
I didn't realize that this was asking a lot.
It's not asking for, "a lot," but it _is_ asking for something that isn't really necessary...let SmartList handle the dist list without your perl script mucking with it, and everything will be happier (and simpler, too).
The dist file and my flat file are in the same format.
Obviously they are _not_ in "the same format," or you wouldn't be having this problem...
I think what I'm trying to gently suggest is that you are working _way_ too hard to keep things the way they are, when you can easily change the script to send a subscribe email to SmartList. Instead of rewriting large sections of SmartList, why not just change the output of your perl script to email?
Charlie
Ah. You didn't say you had access to the source of the other program... Any reason you can't modify your perl cgi program to prepend the magic line? Or, if your program is simply appending, then you can simply put the magic line at the top, and your cgi program will never know the difference... If the file is used for something else which can't handle the magic line, then it an additional open-append on the dist file should be easy enough, assuming your system isn't super high volume.
Don't forget to lock the dist file before you append, etc...
I did a somewhat similar thing a while back, but in my case I had my perl proggie generate the appropriate email to subscribe the applicant..
-ph
On Mon, 18 Jun 2001, KEVIN ZEMBOWER wrote:
I still think that what I want to do is not a great departure from what many folks might like a mailing list system to do. I have a input text box on a web page where viewers can fill in their email address if they want to be notified when the page changes. My simple perl script appends their email address to a flat file that has one email address per line. I'd like to be able to use this file of email addresses as the distribution list for SmartList. However, I'd like SmartList to handle the bounces. I'd also like to be able to have users subscribe and unsubscribe directly to the -request address. My perl script wouldn't "care" if another program, such as SmartList, were also adding and deleting lines.
I didn't realize that this was asking a lot. The dist file and my flat file are in the same format. I can give the flat file any permissions it needs. To make my simple "append this email address to the file" perl script into a full-functioned emailer is more programming than I want.
Do other folks use SmartList to handle a task like this, or is there some other solution that is better suited?
Thanks for your suggestions.
-Kevin Zembower
E. Kevin Zembower Unix Administrator Johns Hopkins University/Center for Communications Programs 111 Market Place, Suite 310 Baltimore, MD 21202 410-659-6139
Charlie Summers charlie@lofcom.com 06/18/01 02:25PM >>>
At 12:01 PM -0400 6/18/01, KEVIN ZEMBOWER is rumored to have typed:
It is with great trepidation that I send this message to the list again. Does no one use SmartList in the way that I want to?
I'd seriously doubt it, since you say you are not _using_ SmartList to manage your dist file, and yet you seem to want SmartList to handle your bounces. Doesn't make a lick of sense to me at all, which is why I think you're unlikely to get much help - kinda oxymoronic, eh?
I'm trying to do something unorthodox with SmartList. My distribution list is kept in a flat file by another program that I have to continue to use.
Then I'd suggest you redirect any bounce messages off to the program that is managing the "flat file" and write your own routines in the "flat file" manager (I am assuming you're refering to a flat-file database manager, but I could be wrong, and frankly it doesn't much matter) to handle the bounces. Either SmartList manages the distribution list, or your "flat file" program does. Seems to me that having both thumbs in the pie is a recipe for disaster...and trying to get SmartList to handle bounces when you admit it _doesn't_ manage the dist file is just silly.
Charlie
Smartlist mailing list Smartlist@lists.RWTH-Aachen.DE http://MailMan.RWTH-Aachen.DE/mailman/listinfo/smartlist
Smartlist mailing list Smartlist@lists.RWTH-Aachen.DE http://MailMan.RWTH-Aachen.DE/mailman/listinfo/smartlist
Zitiere Peter Hartzler pete@hartzler.net:
Ah. You didn't say you had access to the source of the other program... Any reason you can't modify your perl cgi program to prepend the magic line?
Why making things more complicated as they are? He wants to administer a subscriber list with a cgi and smartlist.
He can modify his cgi to simply send the prospective address with an X-Command line to the list-request address instead of writing it to a file and find ways how SL could use this file.
There are ready to use CGI's which can do such things, e.g. XCommand
ftp://ftp.pure.ch/smartlist/
Werner
I still think that what I want to do is not a great departure from what many folks might like a mailing list system to do. I have a
input
text box on a web page where viewers can fill in their email address if they want to be notified when the page changes. My simple perl script appends their email address to a flat file that has one email address per line. I'd like to be able to use this file of email addresses as the distribution list for SmartList. However, I'd like SmartList to handle the bounces. I'd also like to be able to have users subscribe and unsubscribe directly to the -request address. My perl script wouldn't "care" if another program, such as SmartList, were also adding and deleting lines.
At 10:54 +0200 19 Jun 2001, Werner Reisberger werner@pure.ch wrote:
He can modify his cgi to simply send the prospective address with an X-Command line to the list-request address instead of writing it to a file
I recommend sending a subscription request as the prospective subscriber rathern than sending it as an X-Command. For one thing, doing it this way won't bypass the confirmation process. Another issue is that SmartList will allow X-Commands to subscribe addreses that are already on the list.
At one time I found one address subscribed around 40 times to a list that used the X-Command method for a web subscription form. This won't cause a problem when messages are sent out to the list since the duplicates should be folded together. But SmartList will only remove one instance of an address per unsubscription attempt (either because of bouncing or due to a request from the subscriber or list maintainer).
Zitiere Aaron Schrab aaron+smartlist@schrab.com:
At 10:54 +0200 19 Jun 2001, Werner Reisberger werner@pure.ch wrote:
He can modify his cgi to simply send the prospective address with an X-Command line to the list-request address instead of writing it to a
file
I recommend sending a subscription request as the prospective subscriber rathern than sending it as an X-Command. For one thing, doing it this way won't bypass the confirmation process.
Agree.
Another issue is that SmartList will allow X-Commands to subscribe addreses that are already on the list.
That has been fixed with SL v. 3.15.
Werner
smartlist@lists.rwth-aachen.de
-
Aaron Schrab -
Charlie Summers -
KEVIN ZEMBOWER -
Peter Hartzler -
Philip Guenther -
Werner Reisberger