>I need to copy (not rename) the membership of one list to another and
>would like to preserve options (digest, review, etc.) on a per member
>basis.
>
>It would seem that I could do this with:
>
>     get oldlist
>
>followed by
>
>     put newlist
>
>where I keep the headers of newlist and paste in the subscriber list
>from oldlist.
>
>1. Will this work or are their hidden pitfalls?

This should work.  Things to look out for:

* Make sure that your email client does not wrap lines >80 characters
(or whatever), as that will result in the lines where the subscriber
information is stored being screwed up.

* In LISTSERV 1.8d and maybe some earlier versions, you need to use
PUTALL instead of PUT (or else only the header is replaced and the
subscriber information is left untouched).

>2. At one point I remember that if you tried to do this by e-mail
>listserv didn't like the fact that each members' info was split onto 2
>lines (e-mail and name on 1 line and encoded options on the 2nd line)
>and wouldn't do the "put." Is this still the case?

Right.  I think most email clients allow you to turn linewrapping
off, so you should be able to do that.

Another option would be to try to get the LISTSERV maintainer to
simply copy the oldlist.list file and name it newlist.list.  You can
then alter the header to be whatever you want.  As far as I know
there would be no technical problems with doing this.

Of course there are issues like what if some people on the old list
don't want to be on the new list, etc.  Depending on the
circumstances you might be better off sending mail to the old list
saying "there's a new mailing list I think you'd be interested in
called [whatever].  Here's how you join."
--
Jacob Haller, Technical Support
L-Soft international, Inc
http://www.lsoft.com/