[Mailman-Users] using withlist

[Marc Merlin]

I asked a while ago how to remove all the admin messages in a queue, and
Christopher helped me out, showing me how to use withlist.

I also need to do the following:
- Extract a user from a list and dump his info in a file so that I can
  import that user in another list. The idea is if I have to move users
  from one list to another, I don't want to add them with a random password
  mailed to them, instead of re-using their subscribe info from another list
- Import a saved user in a new list
- Change the list password (if it matches a given password). I need this to
  change the password to 100+ lists when some admin leaves
- Change random options in lists (like turn archiving on, and archives from
  private to public), because going through the web form for 100+ lists is
  very time consuming.

Even if you  don't have the answer to  all of those, any you  can give would
help.
Also, if I understand Christopher's  message correctly, withlist can be used
from  the prompt,  but  python $prefix/bin/withlist  -r  module -l  listname
doesn't seem to work. 
Is that true? Does it mean I can't run withlist from shell scripts?

Any chance that scripts like the above will be added to the bin directory of
the standard mailman package, so that other people don't have to ask in the
future?

Thanks a bunch,
Marc


I'm purposely quoting Christopher's whole message since it wasn't sent to
the list.

On sam, oct 30, 1999 at 05:47:51 -0500, Christopher Lindsey wrote:
> > >    > python -i $prefix/bin/withlist -l [listname]
> > >    >>> m.requests={}
> > >    >>> m.Save()
> > >    >>> ^D
> > 
> > Cool, thanks, I'll use that next time
> > 
> > Any chance  of having  that as  a script in  the bin  directory in  a future
> > release?
> 
> I had talked with Barry about doing this at one point (no, I'm not one
> of the developers, it was just a side email) and I never got around to
> it.  I can put one together if you'd like, but...
> 
> What I think would be really cool is for people to compile lists of
> commands to do various things.  withlist will take a module on the
> commandline and run it against an opened MailList object.  So I
> could put together a module that does that little ditty above 
> (the m.requests={} thing), then put it in a directory somewhere.
> Every time that I need to run it, I would do
> 
>    python $prefix/bin/withlist -r module -l listname
> 
> And then of course people could write their own shell script wrappers
> around it.
> 
> I think that putting together a bunch of modules in a centralized 
> repository might be more manageable than lots of different administrative
> binaries.  You could put shell script wrappers in $prefix/bin if
> you really want it there...
> 
> This is what I had in mind when I suggested the -r flag...  It could
> really be a powerful tool for debugging and administration.  
> 
> (unfortunately though, I can't get -r to do what I want; so I'm doing
> something stupid or misunderstood something...  must prod further and
> will report back if I'm being an idiot)
> 
> Chris

-- 
Microsoft is to software what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
 
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