[Mailman-Users] Threading for integration with message board

[Robert Hsiung]

At 12:17 AM -0700 10/5/06, Brad Knowles wrote:

>>  #1 could be addressed by embedding, as I described, the message
>>  number in the original Reply-To: header, because then you could count
>>  on it being included in the To: header of replies.
>
>No, because the "Reply-to:" header has to contain an e-mail address 
>and not a message number

Sorry, "embed" was short for:

>>My other idea is to do it myself, by using the post number of the 
>>post being replied to as the "+detail" part of the reply-to 
>>address. The message board script gives each post a post number. If 
>>it emails out post 123, for example, with a reply-to address of:
>>
>>	list+123 at server
>>
>>and a user replies to that, the sendmail aliases file can pipe it 
>>to the message board script:
>>
>>	list+*: |path-to-script
>>
>>which can then extract the "123" from the [to] header and thread it 
>>after post 123.

So it would be an address containing the number, not just the number.

>>  #4 seems like it would be easy to fix, since you know the posts
>>  belong together and which came first.
>
>That would require potentially re-parsing and modifying every single 
>message in the archive, every time a new message comes into the list.

Why would it imply that? The message comes in, you determine which 
thread it belongs to, and all you have to do is (1) go back in that 
thread until you reach the point where it belongs, which would just 
involve re-parsing those messages, and (2) insert it there, which 
would involve linking the previous message to it and linking it to 
the next message, or modifying two messages.

>In particular, this would mean that ... message numbers in an 
>archive could change whenever some new message comes into the 
>archive in an earlier thread.  Not having persistent message numbers 
>would break the ability to post links to specific archive messages 
>on the list, because tomorrow there might be a different message 
>with that number.

No, the message numbers could stay the same, they might just not stay 
in the same order. If you start with 1 -> 2 -> 3 and 4 comes in late, 
it would become 1 -> 4 -> 2 -> 3. Or whatever. Or am I missing 
something?

Bob