[Mailman-Developers] news to mail gatewaying problem...

[Harald Meland]

[Jim Tittsler]

> On Wed, Aug 11, 1999 at 06:41:05PM -0400, Ronald A. Jarrell wrote:
> > Apparently python's nntplib hasn't been updated in a LONG time; every
> > other major library out there knows to issue a "mode reader" before
> > trying to do anything as a reader on an inn server.  It doesn't hurt if
> 
> I proposed such a patch in comp.lang.python last year, but Guido
> rejected it for fear it might break something else.  He suggested
> instead calling the constructor (with no user argument), and then
> using separate commands for mode reader and authinfo.

Which would imply that programs using the library would have to call
the "shortcmd" NNTP method, which is described as "internal":

        # Internal: send a command and get the response
        def shortcmd(self, line):

I can't say that I'd feel very comfortable doing this, as I suspect
any library-internal methods capable of changing their name and/or
contract when I'm not looking.

> I think you should also be able to add the shortcmd('mode reader')
> to GatewayManager.py and stay with the standard Python library if
> you don't have other nntplib uses on your machine.

Experimental patch that I've now been running for several minutes at
my site:

Index: GatewayManager.py
===================================================================
RCS file: /export/public/cvsroot/mailman/Mailman/GatewayManager.py,v
retrieving revision 1.16
diff -u -r1.16 GatewayManager.py
--- GatewayManager.py	1999/07/01 18:37:31	1.16
+++ GatewayManager.py	1999/08/18 10:14:24
@@ -64,6 +64,11 @@
     # - that the watermark is non-zero
     def PollNewsGroup(self, conn, wm, first, last):
         import nntplib
+        # Tell the news server that we want to _read_ articles now
+        try:
+            conn.shortcmd('mode reader')
+        except:
+            pass
         # NEWNEWS is not portable and has synchronization issues...  Use a
         # watermark system instead.
         for num in range(max(wm+1, first), last+1):

However, our news server appears to work fine without the "mode
reader" magic, so it'd be nice if the patch could be verified by
someone who actually need this...
-- 
Harald