On Thu, Feb 04, 1999 at 09:57:00PM -0800, SRE wrote:
> 
> Here's a real example: I run Climber.Org, which currently has over 20
> email lists and over 700 people subscribed (some to many lists). How do
> I send a message to all 700 people? If I send to all the lists, some
> people will get 10 copies. I'll get 22 copies. Ouch. In this case I
> need a super-list that avoids duplicates if you are on more than one
> list to which I send the message. 

1) use a database.  create an "all unique recipients" query

2) 
find LIST_PARENT_DIRCTORY -name DISTRIBUTION_FILE \
| xargs cat | sort | uniq > recip-list.txt

> With 22 lists, it's not reasonable
> to pre-determine all possible combinations... with fewer lists it would
> be possible to have a periodic update job that created combo lists, but
> then how would you determine when a post should go to which list? The
> best way would be to have list management software "notice" the set of
> lists being copied, and auto-create the combo list on the fly. 

Are you talking about the case when a person sends a message to multiple
lists?  What is your goal for that situation?  If you're only worried 
about generating a recipient list, then it's pretty simple for a
DBMS to generate that for you.

> Even if
> you had THAT, how would you catch the posts that are sent to each list
> one at a time instead of with a long CC or TO list?

Without knowing what the -goal- of "catching" it... this seems like
a silly thing to wonder about.

> If anyone has implemented anything CLOSE to what I described, I'd love
> to hear about it.

Fred Lindberg announce that the next incarnation of his ezmlm mod
will be able to use MySQL as primary storage for mailing list info,
which would be necessary for what you seem to be interested in.

-- 
John White
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
PGP Public Key: http://www.triceratops.com/john/public-key.pgp

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