The mailing list for listmasters using Sympa

[Fiona Dix <address@concealed>]

>  > How do list members set their options to nomail, digest, etc. when
> >  the list is run from an external sql database?
>
> They can't do it !! Sympa do not store himself any information
> about users defined using external data source (user_data_source include)
> (only a internal memory cache is manage by Sympa for performence reasons)


I thought that might be what was happening. But then, it's a 
usability problem that  Sympa doesn't warn you about this when you 
try to do it. Both by email and via wwsympa it is possible to 
*apparently* set nomail (for example) without getting any error back, 
and you can only tell there's a problem because you carry on getting 
the mail!

Now another question. I can't keep these users on a list where they 
can't stop getting the mail if they want to - it's running at a 
volume where many of them would prefer to read the mail in archives 
only and not by email. So I have to change the list parameter to use 
the Sympa database, and update the Sympa database with an sql query 
whenever an email address changes in the external database where 
these users are stored. That won't cause any problems will it?

 And am I right in thinking I can safely insert  the data  for this 
list into user_table and subscriber_table while the list is still 
using the 'include' without messing anything up, because Sympa won't 
use that data till I change the list parameter in config. Can you 
foresee any complications doing this - I want the list to keep 
running smoothly meanwhile.

thanks
Fiona