withlist - General framework for interacting with a mailing list object.

withlist [options] listname [args ...]

There are two ways to use this script: interactively or programmatically. Using it interactively allows you to play with, examine and modify a MailList object from Python's interactive interpreter. When running interactively, a MailList object called `m' will be available in the global namespace. It also loads the class MailList into the global namespace.

Programmatically, you can write a function to operate on a MailList object, and this script will take care of the housekeeping (see below for examples). In that case, the general usage syntax is:

-l, --lock Lock the list when opening. Normally the list is opened unlocked (e.g. for read-only operations). You can always lock the file after the fact by typing `m.Lock()'

Note that if you use this option, you should explicitly call m.Save() before exiting, since the interpreter's clean up procedure will not automatically save changes to the MailList object (but it will unlock the list).

-i, --interactive Leaves you at an interactive prompt after all other processing is complete. This is the default unless the -r option is given.

-r [module.]callable, --run [module.]callable This can be used to run a script with the opened MailList object. This works by attempting to import module] (which must already be accessible on your sys.path), and then calling callable] from the module. callable] can be a class or function; it is called with the MailList object as the first argument. If additional args are given on the command line, they are passed as subsequent positional args to the callable.

Note that module.] is optional; if it is omitted then a module with the name callable] will be imported.

The global variable `r' will be set to the results of this call.

-a, --all This option only works with the -r] option. Use this if you want to execute the script on all mailing lists. When you use -a] you should not include a listname argument on the command line. The variable `r' will be a list of all the results.

-q, --quiet Suppress all status messages.

-h, --help Print a small help text and exit

Here's an example of how to use the -r] option. Say you have a file in the Mailman installation directory called `listaddr.py', with the following two functions:

def listaddr(mlist): print mlist.GetListEmail()

def requestaddr(mlist): print mlist.GetRequestEmail()

Now, from the command line you can print the list's posting address by running the following from the command line:

% bin/withlist -r listaddr mylist Loading list: mylist (unlocked) Importing listaddr ... Running listaddr.listaddr() ... mylist@myhost.com

And you can print the list's request address by running:

% bin/withlist -r listaddr.requestaddr mylist Loading list: mylist (unlocked) Importing listaddr ... Running listaddr.requestaddr() ... mylist-request@myhost.com

As another example, say you wanted to change the password for a particular user on a particular list. You could put the following function in a file called `changepw.py':

from Mailman.Errors import NotAMemberError

def changepw(mlist, addr, newpasswd): try: mlist.setMemberPassword(addr, newpasswd) mlist.Save() except NotAMemberError: print 'No address matched:', addr

and run this from the command line: % bin/withlist -l -r changepw mylist somebody@somewhere.org foobar

Author of Mailman is the Mailman Cabal, see http://www.list.org/ for information. This manpage is written for Debian by Bernd S. Brentrup <bsb@debian.org>.

Mailman documentation on http://www.list.org/ and in /usr/share/doc/mailman.