[Mailman-Users] {Disarmed} Re: importing archived Maildir email lists into Mailman lists archives

[[IDIS Technical Secretariat] Ricardo Rodríguez]

It does make sense indeed!

I do hope to be able to take into account all these details when posting my
next question to this list. In the meantime, I keep learning! Thank you so
much for your time!

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 10:13 PM, Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net> wrote:

> On 09/02/2015 12:27 PM, [IDIS Technical Secretariat] Ricardo Rodríguez
> wrote:
> >
> > Still, I've a doubt about the syntax of Mailman commands. I do need to
> do...
> >
> > [root at idis2 r.users.mbox]# cleanarch <r.users.all.mbox>
> r.users.all.clean.mbox
> >
> >
> > While <> are not required in command arch...
> >
> >
> > [root at idis2 r.users.mbox]# arch --wipe r.users r.users.mbox
> >
> >
> > If I don't use <> to enclose the input file name in cleanarch, I get the
> > help page!
>
>
> You are not 'enclosing' the input file name in cleanarch with <>.
> cleanarch reads the input mailbox from stdin and writes the output mbox
> to stdout. You are actually saying '<r.users.all.mbox' which redirects
> stdin from the terminal to the file r.users.all.mbox and '>
> r.users.all.clean.mbox' which redirects stdout from the terminal to the
> file r.users.all.clean.mbox.
>
> Note that you didn't need to do this as the
> <http://www.arctic.org/~dean/scripts/ezmlm2mbox> script already writes a
> 'clean' mbox.
>
> On the other hand if you give a second argument to bin/arch, it assumes
> that is the mbox. It doesn't read stdin in any case and writes various
> progress info to stdout.
>
>
> > Usage of both commands as per their help pages are close to similar...
> >
> >
> > Usage: cleanarch [options] < inputfile > outputfile
>
>
> This means use shell redirection to read the input from inputfile and
> write the output to outputfile.
>
>
> > Usage: /usr/lib/mailman/bin/arch [options] <listname> [<mbox>]
>
> Here the notation <listname> means that is a variable to be replaced
> with the actual list name and [<mbox>] means that <mbox> is a variable
> to be replaced with the actual mbox, but the [] mean it's optional - if
> not provided it is computed as
> archives/private/<listname>.mbox/<listname>.mbox.
>
>
> > Also, arch alone shows its help page
>
> because arch without at least a <listname> argument is invalid
>
>
> > whereas cleanarch alone do
> > "nothing".
>
> Actually cleanarch alone is valid and both reads its input from and
> writes its output to the terminal. That's why if you type just
> 'cleanarch', it doesn't return immediately to a command prompt but waits
> for input from the terminal.
>
> Consider
>
> mark at msapiro:~$ /var/MM/21/bin/cleanarch
>  - it's waiting for input- I type
> From someone
>  - it responds
> >From someone
>  - to stdout, and
> Unix-From line changed: 1
> From someone
>  - to stderr. then I type ^D (control-D - end of file) and it responds
> 0 messages found
>  - and exits.
>
> > Those usage lines and command behaviour aren't to consistent,
> > are they? Could this behaviour be caused by my local configuration?
>
>
> No. They are caused by two different programs written by at least two
> different people. So yes, they aren't exactly consistent, but if you
> understand the different commands and the shell redirection, it may make
> more sense.
>
> True, cleanarch could have been written to require an input file
> argument instead of using stdin, but using stdin and stdout makes it
> easy to insert it into a pipeline of commands as in for example
>
> ezmlm2mbox [-d] ezmlm_dir | cleanarch | arch --wipe <listname> -
>
> except for the fact that arch doesn't read its stdin even if the
> conventional '-' is used as the mbox file name.
>
> --
> Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
> San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan
>



-- 
Ricardo Rodríguez
Research Management and Promotion Technician
Technical Secretariat
Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS)
http://www.idisantiago.es