[Mailman-Users] Insert character to footer

[Mark Sapiro]

Terry Allen wrote in reply to John Flemming:

>>>  I wish to insert an ampersand (&) into the footer, but >>when I
>>>  use plain &, it generates & into the footer. Should I >>enclose it
>>>  in some way?
>
>>1.  Create a plain text file in /bin named "footer".  Make >your footer there
>>like this:
>
>>msg_footer="""______________________________________________________________________
>>Insert the text you want here & make it real nice.
>>%(real_name)s mailing list
>>%real_name)s@%(host_name)s
>>%web_page_url)slistinfo%cgiext)s/%_internal_name)s
>>"""
>
>>2.  Then run /bin/config_list -i foot listname
>
>>That should do it.  But if you change the footer via the >web interface, you
>>will screw it up.  Change the /bin/footer file instead.
>
>>This technique will allow you to use double quotes and >other problematic
>>characters.  - John
>
>Hi again,
>	Thanks for the feedback. I did change the footer using the 
>web interface, but it didn't screw up anything except add the & 
>into the footer.


By "screw it up" John only meant that any specials in the footer such
as &, <, > and " would be changed back to the escaped versions &amp;,
&lt;, &gt; and &quot;.

This escaping of these special characters is done to prevent Cross Site
Scripting (XSS) attacks against your web site and applies to almost
every text item entered via the admin interface.


>	Out of interest, if I use the method you describe above, does 
>it alter any other lists, or only the one you apply to the list you 
>issue the command on?


Only the one. See "bin/config_list --help"


>	I guess the other minor question I have is - what if I then 
>wish to apply other footers to other lists?

If it's the same footer, just give the bin/config_list once for each
listname. If the footers are different, you need to make a different
file to be used as input to bin/config_list.

Once the list has been updated by bin/config_list, you don't need to
keep the input file any more, but it might be convenient to do so in
case the footer gets munged via the web interface and you need to fix
it.


>	Should your command actually read:
>
>/bin/config_list -i footer listname
>
>instead of :
>
>/bin/config_list -i foot listname
>
>	I'm only guessing that the command needs the name of the file 
>- in which case I'd name the file 'listname_footer' or something 
>similar. Thanks again for your help.


You are correct here. The name in the command should be the name of the
file which can be any name you want.

--
Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan