6.3 The mimetools Module

The Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) standard defines how to store non-ASCII text, images, and other data in RFC 822-style messages.

The mimetools module, shown in Example 6-3, contains a number of tools for writing programs that read or write MIME messages. Among other things, it contains a version of the rfc822 module's Message class, which knows a bit more about MIME encoded messages.

Example 6-3. Using the mimetools Module

File: mimetools-example-1.py

import mimetools

file = open("samples/sample.msg")

msg = mimetools.Message(file)

print "type", "=>", msg.gettype()
print "encoding", "=>", msg.getencoding()
print "plist", "=>", msg.getplist()

print "header", "=>"
for k, v in msg.items():
    print "  ", k, "=", v

type => text/plain
encoding => 7bit
plist => ['charset="iso-8859-1"']
header =>
   mime-version = 1.0
   content-type = text/plain;
 charset="iso-8859-1"
   to = [email protected]
   date = Fri, 15 Oct 1999 03:21:15 -0400
   content-transfer-encoding = 7bit
   from = "Fredrik Lundh" <[email protected]>
   subject = By the way...
...