List memberships

Users represent people in Mailman. Users control email addresses, and rosters are collections of members. A member gives an email address a role, such as member, administrator, or moderator. Roster sets are collections of rosters and a mailing list has a single roster set that contains all its members, regardless of that member’s role.

Mailing lists and roster sets have an indirect relationship, through the roster set’s name. Roster also have names, but are related to roster sets by a more direct containment relationship. This is because it is possible to store mailing list data in a different database than user data.

When we create a mailing list, it starts out with no members...

>>> mlist = create_list('_xtest@example.com')
>>> mlist
<mailing list "_xtest@example.com" at ...>
>>> sorted(member.address.address for member in mlist.members.members)
[]
>>> sorted(user.real_name for user in mlist.members.users)
[]
>>> sorted(address.address for member in mlist.members.addresses)
[]

...no owners...

>>> sorted(member.address.address for member in mlist.owners.members)
[]
>>> sorted(user.real_name for user in mlist.owners.users)
[]
>>> sorted(address.address for member in mlist.owners.addresses)
[]

...no moderators...

>>> sorted(member.address.address for member in mlist.moderators.members)
[]
>>> sorted(user.real_name for user in mlist.moderators.users)
[]
>>> sorted(address.address for member in mlist.moderators.addresses)
[]

...and no administrators.

>>> sorted(member.address.address
...        for member in mlist.administrators.members)
[]
>>> sorted(user.real_name for user in mlist.administrators.users)
[]
>>> sorted(address.address for member in mlist.administrators.addresses)
[]

Administrators

A mailing list’s administrators are defined as union of the list’s owners and the list’s moderators. We can add new owners or moderators to this list by assigning roles to users. First we have to create the user, because there are no users in the user database yet.

>>> from mailman.interfaces.usermanager import IUserManager
>>> from zope.component import getUtility
>>> user_manager = getUtility(IUserManager)
>>> user_1 = user_manager.create_user('aperson@example.com', 'Anne Person')
>>> print user_1.real_name
Anne Person
>>> sorted(address.address for address in user_1.addresses)
[u'aperson@example.com']

We can add Anne as an owner of the mailing list, by creating a member role for her.

>>> from mailman.interfaces.member import MemberRole
>>> address_1 = list(user_1.addresses)[0]
>>> print address_1.address
aperson@example.com
>>> address_1.subscribe(mlist, MemberRole.owner)
<Member: Anne Person <aperson@example.com> on
         _xtest@example.com as MemberRole.owner>
>>> sorted(member.address.address for member in mlist.owners.members)
[u'aperson@example.com']
>>> sorted(user.real_name for user in mlist.owners.users)
[u'Anne Person']
>>> sorted(address.address for address in mlist.owners.addresses)
[u'aperson@example.com']

Adding Anne as a list owner also makes her an administrator, but does not make her a moderator. Nor does it make her a member of the list.

>>> sorted(user.real_name for user in mlist.administrators.users)
[u'Anne Person']
>>> sorted(user.real_name for user in mlist.moderators.users)
[]
>>> sorted(user.real_name for user in mlist.members.users)
[]

We can add Ben as a moderator of the list, by creating a different member role for him.

>>> user_2 = user_manager.create_user('bperson@example.com', 'Ben Person')
>>> print user_2.real_name
Ben Person
>>> address_2 = list(user_2.addresses)[0]
>>> print address_2.address
bperson@example.com
>>> address_2.subscribe(mlist, MemberRole.moderator)
<Member: Ben Person <bperson@example.com>
         on _xtest@example.com as MemberRole.moderator>
>>> sorted(member.address.address for member in mlist.moderators.members)
[u'bperson@example.com']
>>> sorted(user.real_name for user in mlist.moderators.users)
[u'Ben Person']
>>> sorted(address.address for address in mlist.moderators.addresses)
[u'bperson@example.com']

Now, both Anne and Ben are list administrators.

>>> sorted(member.address.address
...        for member in mlist.administrators.members)
[u'aperson@example.com', u'bperson@example.com']
>>> sorted(user.real_name for user in mlist.administrators.users)
[u'Anne Person', u'Ben Person']
>>> sorted(address.address for address in mlist.administrators.addresses)
[u'aperson@example.com', u'bperson@example.com']

Members

Similarly, list members are born of users being given the proper role. It’s more interesting here because these roles should have a preference which can be used to decide whether the member is to get regular delivery or digest delivery. Without a preference, Mailman will fall back first to the address’s preference, then the user’s preference, then the list’s preference. Start without any member preference to see the system defaults.

>>> user_3 = user_manager.create_user(
...     'cperson@example.com', 'Claire Person')
>>> print user_3.real_name
Claire Person
>>> address_3 = list(user_3.addresses)[0]
>>> print address_3.address
cperson@example.com
>>> address_3.subscribe(mlist, MemberRole.member)
<Member: Claire Person <cperson@example.com>
         on _xtest@example.com as MemberRole.member>

Claire will be a regular delivery member but not a digest member.

>>> sorted(address.address for address in mlist.members.addresses)
[u'cperson@example.com']
>>> sorted(address.address for address in mlist.regular_members.addresses)
[u'cperson@example.com']
>>> sorted(address.address for address in mlist.digest_members.addresses)
[]

It’s easy to make the list administrators members of the mailing list too.

>>> members = []
>>> for address in mlist.administrators.addresses:
...     member = address.subscribe(mlist, MemberRole.member)
...     members.append(member)
>>> sorted(members, key=lambda m: m.address.address)
[<Member: Anne Person <aperson@example.com> on
          _xtest@example.com as MemberRole.member>,
 <Member: Ben Person <bperson@example.com> on
          _xtest@example.com as MemberRole.member>]
>>> sorted(address.address for address in mlist.members.addresses)
[u'aperson@example.com', u'bperson@example.com', u'cperson@example.com']
>>> sorted(address.address for address in mlist.regular_members.addresses)
[u'aperson@example.com', u'bperson@example.com', u'cperson@example.com']
>>> sorted(address.address for address in mlist.digest_members.addresses)
[]

Finding members

You can find the IMember object that is a member of a roster for a given text email address by using the IRoster.get_member() method.

>>> mlist.owners.get_member('aperson@example.com')
<Member: Anne Person <aperson@example.com> on
         _xtest@example.com as MemberRole.owner>
>>> mlist.administrators.get_member('aperson@example.com')
<Member: Anne Person <aperson@example.com> on
         _xtest@example.com as MemberRole.owner>
>>> mlist.members.get_member('aperson@example.com')
<Member: Anne Person <aperson@example.com> on
         _xtest@example.com as MemberRole.member>

However, if the address is not subscribed with the appropriate role, then None is returned.

>>> print mlist.administrators.get_member('zperson@example.com')
None
>>> print mlist.moderators.get_member('aperson@example.com')
None
>>> print mlist.members.get_member('zperson@example.com')
None

All subscribers

There is also a roster containing all the subscribers of a mailing list, regardless of their role.

>>> def sortkey(member):
...     return (member.address.address, int(member.role))
>>> [(member.address.address, str(member.role))
...  for member in sorted(mlist.subscribers.members, key=sortkey)]
[(u'aperson@example.com', 'MemberRole.member'),
 (u'aperson@example.com', 'MemberRole.owner'),
 (u'bperson@example.com', 'MemberRole.member'),
 (u'bperson@example.com', 'MemberRole.moderator'),
 (u'cperson@example.com', 'MemberRole.member')]

Double subscriptions

It is an error to subscribe someone to a list with the same role twice.

>>> address_1.subscribe(mlist, MemberRole.owner)
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
AlreadySubscribedError: aperson@example.com is already a MemberRole.owner
of mailing list _xtest@example.com

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