Thanks Stefan, Nice analysis - esp. of the locking problems which explains why I wasn't managing to scale with multiple threads, even from a straight python script (no Zope). Pretty certain I'm going to botch up qmail if I start writing directly to the maildrop, but will investigate. As for my initial question (detaching the sending thread from the interactive part of Zope), I'm relieved to see that the 'threading' module is taking care of everything for you ... I must have screwed up in my earlier attempts (using 'thread'). Will give it another shot now that I know this is the way to go forward. Cheers, chas
You might want to take a look at my bulk mailing how-to http://www.zope.org/Members/shh/BulkMailHack/
Regards, Stefan
Goal: an end-user fills in a form on a webpage and clicks the 'submit' button. As a result, thousands of customized e-mail messages are sent.
Problems: (i) The msgs are customized so Mailman is not appropriate. also, there is substantial workflow so Zope is preferred. (ii) The end user only uses a web browser - s/he will not be expected to log in and use ZClient, so the previous solution suggested below is not viable. (iii) The confirmation webpage must return immediately... ie. we do not want to wait for all the emails to be sent before the page is returned to the user. This has to be processed in the background (perhaps for the next hour or so, even if the user logs off).
Possible scenario : user logs on, fills in form, hits 'submit', confirmation webpage is returned to the user saying it's ok, emails start to get sent out, user logs off, emails continue to get sent out, user logs back on 2 hrs later and its still processing.
Anyone any ideas on this one ? Thanks a lot,