<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <link rel="STYLESHEET" href="mailman-member.css" type='text/css' /> <link rel="first" href="mailman-member.html" title='GNU mailman - list Member Manual' /> <link rel='contents' href='contents.html' title="Contents" /> <link rel='last' href='about.html' title='About this document...' /> <link rel='help' href='about.html' title='About this document...' /> <link rel="next" href="node31.html" /> <link rel="prev" href="node29.html" /> <link rel="parent" href="node29.html" /> <link rel="next" href="node31.html" /> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <meta name='aesop' content='information' /> <title>9.1 How do I make sure that my post has the right topic?</title> </head> <body> <div class="navigation"> <div id='top-navigation-panel' xml:id='top-navigation-panel'> <table align="center" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2"> <tr> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="prev" title="9 mailing list topics" href="node29.html"><img src='previous.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Previous Page' width='32' /></a></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="parent" title="9 mailing list topics" href="node29.html"><img src='up.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Up one Level' width='32' /></a></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="next" title="9.2 how do I" href="node31.html"><img src='next.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Next Page' width='32' /></a></td> <td align="center" width="100%">GNU Mailman - List Member Manual</td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="contents" title="Table of Contents" href="contents.html"><img src='contents.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Contents' width='32' /></a></td> <td class='online-navigation'><img src='blank.png' border='0' height='32' alt='' width='32' /></td> <td class='online-navigation'><img src='blank.png' border='0' height='32' alt='' width='32' /></td> </tr></table> <div class='online-navigation'> <b class="navlabel">Previous:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="prev" href="node29.html">9 Mailing list topics</a> <b class="navlabel">Up:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="parent" href="node29.html">9 Mailing list topics</a> <b class="navlabel">Next:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="next" href="node31.html">9.2 How do I</a> </div> <hr /></div> </div> <!--End of Navigation Panel--> <h2><a name="SECTION002910000000000000000"></a><a name="sec:posttopic"></a> <br> 9.1 How do I make sure that my post has the right topic? </h2> <p> When a list administrator defines a topic, he or she sets three things: <ul> <li>a topic name </li> <li>a regular expression (regexp) </li> <li>a description </li> </ul> <p> You can view this information by logging in to your member options page. (See Section <a href="node9.html#sec:web">3.1</a> for more details on how to do this.) and clicking on the "details" link for any topic that interests you. <p> To post on a given topic, you need to make sure that the <span class="mailheader">Keywords:</span> or <span class="mailheader">Subject:</span> headers in a message match the <em>regular expression</em> for that topic. Regular expressions can actually be fairly complex, so you may want to just ask the list administrator if you don't know how to make heads or tails of the expression given. <p> Most Mailman topic expressions will be fairly simple regular expressions, so in this document we will simply give you some common examples. Regular expressions are a bit too complex to teach in a few lines here, so if you really want to understand how the regular expressions work, you should find a tutorial or reference elsewhere. (For example, DevShed has a decent tutorial at <a class="url" href="http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/Administration/RegExp/">http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/Administration/RegExp/</a>) <p> Here are some examples of possible regular expressions and matching lines: <p> <div class="center"><table class="realtable"> <thead> <tr> <th class="left" >Regular expression</th> <th class="left" >Matching lines</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr><td class="left" valign="baseline">zuff</td> <td class="left" >Keywords: zuff</td></tr> <tr><td class="left" valign="baseline">zuff</td> <td class="left" >Keywords: ZUFF</td></tr> <tr><td class="left" valign="baseline">zuff</td> <td class="left" >Keywords: Zuff</td></tr> <tr><td class="left" valign="baseline">zuff</td> <td class="left" >Keywords: amaryllis, zuff, applesauce</td></tr> <tr><td class="left" valign="baseline">zuff</td> <td class="left" >Subject: [zuff] Do you have the right stuff for zuff?</td></tr> <tr><td class="left" valign="baseline">zuff</td> <td class="left" >Subject: Do you have the right stuff for zuff?</td></tr> <tr><td class="left" valign="baseline">zuff</td> <td class="left" >Subject: What is zuff?</td></tr> <tr><td class="left" valign="baseline">\[zuff\]</td> <td class="left" >Keywords: [zuff]</td></tr> <tr><td class="left" valign="baseline">\[zuff\]</td> <td class="left" >Subject: [zuff] Do you have the right stuff?</td></tr> <tr><td class="left" valign="baseline">\[zuff\]</td> <td class="left" >Subject: Online zuff tutorials (was Re: [zuff] What is zuff?)</td></tr></tbody> </table></div> <p> A few notes: <ul> <li>The matching is case-insensitive, so if zuff matches, so will ZUFF, zuFF, and any other variations in capitalization. </li> <li>Some characters have special meaning in a regular expression, so to match those characters specifically, they must be "escaped" with a backslash (\). As you can see in the above example, [ and ] are such characters. (Others include ".", "?", and "*"). The backslash is also used for other things (I wasn't kidding about regular expressions being complex: consult other documentation for details about other uses of the backslash character), but this is the most likely use in a topic expression. </li> </ul> <p> <div class="navigation"> <div class='online-navigation'> <p></p><hr /> <table align="center" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2"> <tr> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="prev" title="9 mailing list topics" href="node29.html"><img src='previous.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Previous Page' width='32' /></a></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="parent" title="9 mailing list topics" href="node29.html"><img src='up.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Up one Level' width='32' /></a></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="next" title="9.2 how do I" href="node31.html"><img src='next.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Next Page' width='32' /></a></td> <td align="center" width="100%">GNU Mailman - List Member Manual</td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="contents" title="Table of Contents" href="contents.html"><img src='contents.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Contents' width='32' /></a></td> <td class='online-navigation'><img src='blank.png' border='0' height='32' alt='' width='32' /></td> <td class='online-navigation'><img src='blank.png' border='0' height='32' alt='' width='32' /></td> </tr></table> <div class='online-navigation'> <b class="navlabel">Previous:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="prev" href="node29.html">9 Mailing list topics</a> <b class="navlabel">Up:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="parent" href="node29.html">9 Mailing list topics</a> <b class="navlabel">Next:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="next" href="node31.html">9.2 How do I</a> </div> </div> <hr /> <span class="release-info">Release 2.1, documentation updated on December 14, 2009.</span> </div> <!--End of Navigation Panel--> </body> </html>