Declarative message addressing

A method of messaging, comprising the steps of:

• receiving a declarative address associated with a message, the declarative address defined by a sender of the message and specifying at least one recipient for the message based on properties of the recipient, and specifying a mailing list and directory information;
• resolving the declarative address into at least one messaging address;
• transmitting the message to the at least one messaging address,
• where the at least one message address is retrieved based on the specified directory information and mailing list information.

A declarative address, for specifying messaging addresses, comprising:

• an operand and an operator, defined by a sender of a message;
• the operand specifying at least one messaging address based on a property associated with at least one message recipient associated with the at least one messaging address, wherein the property relates to information in a directory of message recipients and a mailing list of message recipients;
• and
• the operator specifying an operation to be performed on the at least one messaging address specified by the operand.

A method of defining a mailing list of message recipients, comprising the steps of:

• specifying a mailing list identifier,
• specifying a declarative address, the declarative address specifying message recipients based on properties of the recipients, and the declarative address comprising an operand specifying at least one messaging address based on a property associated with at least one message recipient associated with the at least one messaging address, wherein the property relates to information in a directory of message recipients and a mailing list of message recipients and an operator, specifying an operation to be performed on the least one messaging address specified by the operand;
• and
• assigning the declarative address to the mailing list identifier.

A method of messaging, comprising the steps of:

• receiving a declarative address specification, the declarative address defined by a sender of a message and specifying at least one recipient for the message based on properties of the recipient and further specifying directory information and mailing list information;
• generating a declarative address based on the received declarative address specification and transmitting the declarative address to an address resolution module;
• translating the declarative address into a database query and transmitting the database query to a database system;
• retrieving at least one messaging address from the database system based on the query and transmitting the at least one messaging address to the address resolution module;
• and
• transmitting the message to the at least one messaging address.