[Mailman-Developers] Mail-to-news gatewaying?

[Brad Knowles]

Folks,

	Okay, so we know about the issue of munging Message-ID: (if you 
don't know what I'm talking about, see 
<http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq04.059.htp>).


	The latest crisis that has me wondering is the subject prefix 
stuff.  Looking in NewsRunner.py, starting at line 104, we have:

     # Should we restore the original, non-prefixed subject for gatewayed
     # messages?
     origsubj = msgdata.get('origsubj')
     if not mlist.news_prefix_subject_too and origsubj is not None:
         del msg['subject']
         msg['subject'] = origsubj


	However, we still have a problem.  If mail clients reply to the 
message to the list (which will include the subject prefix), then 
this will result in a new message with a subject prefix for the list 
already present.  Now, Mailman is smart and avoids adding a second 
subject prefix, but it doesn't strip out the subject prefix if one 
already exists.  For the mailing list, this subject prefix stripping 
isn't necessary.  But for gatewaying to the newsgroup, it might be 
desirable.

	This would also resolve the issue of restoring the original 
subject when gatewaying -- don't bother, and just let the subject 
prefix stripper deal with it.


	If this were sed or Perl, I could quickly put together a one-line 
hack to implement this feature.  For example, just doing something 
off the top of my head, you might be able to use something like:

		subject=y/\w*$prefix\w*/ /;

	But this is Python, and I don't really grok Python.  Can someone 
help me out here?

	Looking at 
<http://www.python.org/doc/2.3.4/lib/module-string.html>, I'm 
imagining some sort of permutation of find(), split(), either 
lstrip() or rstrip(), and then join(), should be sufficient to do the 
job.  But I'm not quite able to figure out how to put them all 
together.


	Of course, the reason why I ask is that I'm getting complaints 
about the mail-to-news gateway I'm running at another site, and I 
don't want this to blow up into an ugly situation.

	Sigh....

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.