[Zope] - Importing objects

Andrew M. Kuchling akuchlin@cnri.reston.va.us
Tue, 8 Dec 1998 09:52:03 -0500 (EST)


Andy Dustman writes:
>I have an application where I would collect various automated e-mail
>responses which arrive more or less randomly. How can I get these into
>Zope? It looks like I could use the ZPublisher.Client module. Following
>along in the code, it looks like it ought to do the job. Is there some
>existing object type I can use for this, or do I have to make one?

	Ah!  I've been fuzzily thinking of the objects that would be
useful for an upcoming site, and one of them would be an object for
receiving mail messages.  Outside of Zope, you'd have to add a line to
/etc/aliases and pipe mail to some script which would stick messages
in a directory or GDBM file or something.  Actually processing
messages is another matter; would it be better to have external
scripts that read mail and twiddle objects in the Bobobase, or do
everything in the long-running Zope process?  If handled internally,
you could have a publish/subscribe model: objects could send out a
message with an ID in the subject line, and then be notified when a
response with that ID comes in again.

	IMHO an important task will be to assemble a library of Zope
objects, letting people assemble systems out of lower-level building
blocks.  For example, given a mail receiving object, you could write a
mailing list manager like Mailman as a Zope application.

-- 
A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.skyport.net/crew/amk/
It may be objected by some that I have concentrated too much on the dry bones,
and too little on the flesh which clothes them, but I would ask such critics
to concede at least that the bones have an austere beauty of their own.
    -- A.B. Pippard, _Classical Thermodynamics_