cpython/Doc/library/email.message.rst

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:mod:`email.message`: Representing an email message
---------------------------------------------------
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.. module:: email.message
:synopsis: The base class representing email messages.
.. moduleauthor:: R. David Murray <rdmurray@bitdance.com>
.. sectionauthor:: R. David Murray <rdmurray@bitdance.com>,
Barry A. Warsaw <barry@python.org>
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**Source code:** :source:`Lib/email/message.py`
--------------
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.. versionadded:: 3.6 [1]_
The central class in the :mod:`email` package is the :class:`EmailMessage`
class, imported from the :mod:`email.message` module. It is the base class for
the :mod:`email` object model. :class:`EmailMessage` provides the core
functionality for setting and querying header fields, for accessing message
bodies, and for creating or modifying structured messages.
An email message consists of *headers* and a *payload* (which is also referred
to as the *content*). Headers are :rfc:`5322` or :rfc:`6532` style field names
and values, where the field name and value are separated by a colon. The colon
is not part of either the field name or the field value. The payload may be a
simple text message, or a binary object, or a structured sequence of
sub-messages each with their own set of headers and their own payload. The
latter type of payload is indicated by the message having a MIME type such as
:mimetype:`multipart/\*` or :mimetype:`message/rfc822`.
The conceptual model provided by an :class:`EmailMessage` object is that of an
ordered dictionary of headers coupled with a *payload* that represents the
:rfc:`5322` body of the message, which might be a list of sub-``EmailMessage``
objects. In addition to the normal dictionary methods for accessing the header
names and values, there are methods for accessing specialized information from
the headers (for example the MIME content type), for operating on the payload,
for generating a serialized version of the message, and for recursively walking
over the object tree.
The :class:`EmailMessage` dictionary-like interface is indexed by the header
names, which must be ASCII values. The values of the dictionary are strings
with some extra methods. Headers are stored and returned in case-preserving
form, but field names are matched case-insensitively. Unlike a real dict,
there is an ordering to the keys, and there can be duplicate keys. Additional
methods are provided for working with headers that have duplicate keys.
The *payload* is either a string or bytes object, in the case of simple message
objects, or a list of :class:`EmailMessage` objects, for MIME container
documents such as :mimetype:`multipart/\*` and :mimetype:`message/rfc822`
message objects.
.. class:: EmailMessage(policy=default)
If *policy* is specified use the rules it specifies to update and serialize
the representation of the message. If *policy* is not set, use the
:class:`~email.policy.default` policy, which follows the rules of the email
RFCs except for line endings (instead of the RFC mandated ``\r\n``, it uses
the Python standard ``\n`` line endings). For more information see the
:mod:`~email.policy` documentation.
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.. method:: as_string(unixfrom=False, maxheaderlen=None, policy=None)
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Return the entire message flattened as a string. When optional
*unixfrom* is true, the envelope header is included in the returned
string. *unixfrom* defaults to ``False``. For backward compatibility
with the base :class:`~email.message.Message` class *maxheaderlen* is
accepted, but defaults to ``None``, which means that by default the line
length is controlled by the
:attr:`~email.policy.EmailPolicy.max_line_length` of the policy. The
*policy* argument may be used to override the default policy obtained
from the message instance. This can be used to control some of the
formatting produced by the method, since the specified *policy* will be
passed to the :class:`~email.generator.Generator`.
Flattening the message may trigger changes to the :class:`EmailMessage`
if defaults need to be filled in to complete the transformation to a
string (for example, MIME boundaries may be generated or modified).
Note that this method is provided as a convenience and may not be the
most useful way to serialize messages in your application, especially if
you are dealing with multiple messages. See
:class:`email.generator.Generator` for a more flexible API for
serializing messages. Note also that this method is restricted to
producing messages serialized as "7 bit clean" when
:attr:`~email.policy.EmailPolicy.utf8` is ``False``, which is the default.
.. versionchanged:: 3.6 the default behavior when *maxheaderlen*
is not specified was changed from defaulting to 0 to defaulting
to the value of *max_line_length* from the policy.
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.. method:: __str__()
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Equivalent to ``as_string(policy=self.policy.clone(utf8=True))``. Allows
``str(msg)`` to produce a string containing the serialized message in a
readable format.
.. versionchanged:: 3.4 the method was changed to use ``utf8=True``,
thus producing an :rfc:`6531`-like message representation, instead of
being a direct alias for :meth:`as_string`.
.. method:: as_bytes(unixfrom=False, policy=None)
Return the entire message flattened as a bytes object. When optional
*unixfrom* is true, the envelope header is included in the returned
string. *unixfrom* defaults to ``False``. The *policy* argument may be
used to override the default policy obtained from the message instance.
This can be used to control some of the formatting produced by the
method, since the specified *policy* will be passed to the
:class:`~email.generator.BytesGenerator`.
Flattening the message may trigger changes to the :class:`EmailMessage`
if defaults need to be filled in to complete the transformation to a
string (for example, MIME boundaries may be generated or modified).
Note that this method is provided as a convenience and may not be the
most useful way to serialize messages in your application, especially if
you are dealing with multiple messages. See
:class:`email.generator.BytesGenerator` for a more flexible API for
serializing messages.
.. method:: __bytes__()
Equivalent to :meth:`.as_bytes()`. Allows ``bytes(msg)`` to produce a
bytes object containing the serialized message.
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.. method:: is_multipart()
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Return ``True`` if the message's payload is a list of
sub-\ :class:`EmailMessage` objects, otherwise return ``False``. When
:meth:`is_multipart` returns ``False``, the payload should be a string
object (which might be a CTE encoded binary payload). Note that
:meth:`is_multipart` returning ``True`` does not necessarily mean that
"msg.get_content_maintype() == 'multipart'" will return the ``True``.
For example, ``is_multipart`` will return ``True`` when the
:class:`EmailMessage` is of type ``message/rfc822``.
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.. method:: set_unixfrom(unixfrom)
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Set the message's envelope header to *unixfrom*, which should be a
string. (See :class:`~mailbox.mboxMessage` for a brief description of
this header.)
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.. method:: get_unixfrom()
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Return the message's envelope header. Defaults to ``None`` if the
envelope header was never set.
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The following methods implement the mapping-like interface for accessing the
message's headers. Note that there are some semantic differences
between these methods and a normal mapping (i.e. dictionary) interface. For
example, in a dictionary there are no duplicate keys, but here there may be
duplicate message headers. Also, in dictionaries there is no guaranteed
order to the keys returned by :meth:`keys`, but in an :class:`EmailMessage`
object, headers are always returned in the order they appeared in the
original message, or in which they were added to the message later. Any
header deleted and then re-added is always appended to the end of the
header list.
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These semantic differences are intentional and are biased toward
convenience in the most common use cases.
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Note that in all cases, any envelope header present in the message is not
included in the mapping interface.
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.. method:: __len__()
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Return the total number of headers, including duplicates.
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.. method:: __contains__(name)
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Return ``True`` if the message object has a field named *name*. Matching is
done without regard to case and *name* does not include the trailing
colon. Used for the ``in`` operator. For example::
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if 'message-id' in myMessage:
print('Message-ID:', myMessage['message-id'])
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.. method:: __getitem__(name)
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Return the value of the named header field. *name* does not include the
colon field separator. If the header is missing, ``None`` is returned; a
:exc:`KeyError` is never raised.
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Note that if the named field appears more than once in the message's
headers, exactly which of those field values will be returned is
undefined. Use the :meth:`get_all` method to get the values of all the
extant headers named *name*.
Using the standard (non-``compat32``) policies, the returned value is an
instance of a subclass of :class:`email.headerregistry.BaseHeader`.
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.. method:: __setitem__(name, val)
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Add a header to the message with field name *name* and value *val*. The
field is appended to the end of the message's existing headers.
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Note that this does *not* overwrite or delete any existing header with the same
name. If you want to ensure that the new header is the only one present in the
message with field name *name*, delete the field first, e.g.::
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del msg['subject']
msg['subject'] = 'Python roolz!'
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If the :mod:`policy` defines certain headers to be unique (as the standard
policies do), this method may raise a :exc:`ValueError` when an attempt
is made to assign a value to such a header when one already exists. This
behavior is intentional for consistency's sake, but do not depend on it
as we may choose to make such assignments do an automatic deletion of the
existing header in the future.
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.. method:: __delitem__(name)
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Delete all occurrences of the field with name *name* from the message's
headers. No exception is raised if the named field isn't present in the
headers.
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.. method:: keys()
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Return a list of all the message's header field names.
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.. method:: values()
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Return a list of all the message's field values.
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.. method:: items()
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Return a list of 2-tuples containing all the message's field headers and
values.
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.. method:: get(name, failobj=None)
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Return the value of the named header field. This is identical to
:meth:`__getitem__` except that optional *failobj* is returned if the
named header is missing (*failobj* defaults to ``None``).
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Here are some additional useful header related methods:
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.. method:: get_all(name, failobj=None)
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Return a list of all the values for the field named *name*. If there are
no such named headers in the message, *failobj* is returned (defaults to
``None``).
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.. method:: add_header(_name, _value, **_params)
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Extended header setting. This method is similar to :meth:`__setitem__`
except that additional header parameters can be provided as keyword
arguments. *_name* is the header field to add and *_value* is the
*primary* value for the header.
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For each item in the keyword argument dictionary *_params*, the key is
taken as the parameter name, with underscores converted to dashes (since
dashes are illegal in Python identifiers). Normally, the parameter will
be added as ``key="value"`` unless the value is ``None``, in which case
only the key will be added.
If the value contains non-ASCII characters, the charset and language may
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be explicitly controlled by specifying the value as a three tuple in the
format ``(CHARSET, LANGUAGE, VALUE)``, where ``CHARSET`` is a string
naming the charset to be used to encode the value, ``LANGUAGE`` can
usually be set to ``None`` or the empty string (see :rfc:`2231` for other
possibilities), and ``VALUE`` is the string value containing non-ASCII
code points. If a three tuple is not passed and the value contains
non-ASCII characters, it is automatically encoded in :rfc:`2231` format
using a ``CHARSET`` of ``utf-8`` and a ``LANGUAGE`` of ``None``.
Here is an example::
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msg.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment', filename='bud.gif')
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This will add a header that looks like ::
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Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="bud.gif"
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An example of the extended interface with non-ASCII characters::
msg.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment',
filename=('iso-8859-1', '', 'Fußballer.ppt'))
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.. method:: replace_header(_name, _value)
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Replace a header. Replace the first header found in the message that
matches *_name*, retaining header order and field name case of the
original header. If no matching header is found, raise a
:exc:`KeyError`.
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.. method:: get_content_type()
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Return the message's content type, coerced to lower case of the form
:mimetype:`maintype/subtype`. If there is no :mailheader:`Content-Type`
header in the message return the value returned by
:meth:`get_default_type`. If the :mailheader:`Content-Type` header is
invalid, return ``text/plain``.
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(According to :rfc:`2045`, messages always have a default type,
:meth:`get_content_type` will always return a value. :rfc:`2045` defines
a message's default type to be :mimetype:`text/plain` unless it appears
inside a :mimetype:`multipart/digest` container, in which case it would
be :mimetype:`message/rfc822`. If the :mailheader:`Content-Type` header
has an invalid type specification, :rfc:`2045` mandates that the default
type be :mimetype:`text/plain`.)
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.. method:: get_content_maintype()
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Return the message's main content type. This is the :mimetype:`maintype`
part of the string returned by :meth:`get_content_type`.
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.. method:: get_content_subtype()
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Return the message's sub-content type. This is the :mimetype:`subtype`
part of the string returned by :meth:`get_content_type`.
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.. method:: get_default_type()
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Return the default content type. Most messages have a default content
type of :mimetype:`text/plain`, except for messages that are subparts of
:mimetype:`multipart/digest` containers. Such subparts have a default
content type of :mimetype:`message/rfc822`.
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.. method:: set_default_type(ctype)
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Set the default content type. *ctype* should either be
:mimetype:`text/plain` or :mimetype:`message/rfc822`, although this is
not enforced. The default content type is not stored in the
:mailheader:`Content-Type` header, so it only affects the return value of
the ``get_content_type`` methods when no :mailheader:`Content-Type`
header is present in the message.
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.. method:: set_param(param, value, header='Content-Type', requote=True, \
charset=None, language='', replace=False)
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Set a parameter in the :mailheader:`Content-Type` header. If the
parameter already exists in the header, replace its value with *value*.
When *header* is ``Content-Type`` (the default) and the header does not
yet exist in the message, add it, set its value to
:mimetype:`text/plain`, and append the new parameter value. Optional
*header* specifies an alternative header to :mailheader:`Content-Type`.
If the value contains non-ASCII characters, the charset and language may
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be explicitly specified using the optional *charset* and *language*
parameters. Optional *language* specifies the :rfc:`2231` language,
defaulting to the empty string. Both *charset* and *language* should be
strings. The default is to use the ``utf8`` *charset* and ``None`` for
the *language*.
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If *replace* is ``False`` (the default) the header is moved to the
end of the list of headers. If *replace* is ``True``, the header
will be updated in place.
Use of the *requote* parameter with :class:`EmailMessage` objects is
deprecated.
Note that existing parameter values of headers may be accessed through
the :attr:`~email.headerregistry.BaseHeader.params` attribute of the
header value (for example, ``msg['Content-Type'].params['charset']``).
.. versionchanged:: 3.4 ``replace`` keyword was added.
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.. method:: del_param(param, header='content-type', requote=True)
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Remove the given parameter completely from the :mailheader:`Content-Type`
header. The header will be re-written in place without the parameter or
its value. Optional *header* specifies an alternative to
:mailheader:`Content-Type`.
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Use of the *requote* parameter with :class:`EmailMessage` objects is
deprecated.
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.. method:: get_filename(failobj=None)
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Return the value of the ``filename`` parameter of the
:mailheader:`Content-Disposition` header of the message. If the header
does not have a ``filename`` parameter, this method falls back to looking
for the ``name`` parameter on the :mailheader:`Content-Type` header. If
neither is found, or the header is missing, then *failobj* is returned.
The returned string will always be unquoted as per
:func:`email.utils.unquote`.
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.. method:: get_boundary(failobj=None)
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Return the value of the ``boundary`` parameter of the
:mailheader:`Content-Type` header of the message, or *failobj* if either
the header is missing, or has no ``boundary`` parameter. The returned
string will always be unquoted as per :func:`email.utils.unquote`.
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.. method:: set_boundary(boundary)
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Set the ``boundary`` parameter of the :mailheader:`Content-Type` header to
*boundary*. :meth:`set_boundary` will always quote *boundary* if
necessary. A :exc:`~email.errors.HeaderParseError` is raised if the
message object has no :mailheader:`Content-Type` header.
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Note that using this method is subtly different from deleting the old
:mailheader:`Content-Type` header and adding a new one with the new
boundary via :meth:`add_header`, because :meth:`set_boundary` preserves
the order of the :mailheader:`Content-Type` header in the list of
headers.
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.. method:: get_content_charset(failobj=None)
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Return the ``charset`` parameter of the :mailheader:`Content-Type` header,
coerced to lower case. If there is no :mailheader:`Content-Type` header, or if
that header has no ``charset`` parameter, *failobj* is returned.
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.. method:: get_charsets(failobj=None)
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Return a list containing the character set names in the message. If the
message is a :mimetype:`multipart`, then the list will contain one element
for each subpart in the payload, otherwise, it will be a list of length 1.
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Each item in the list will be a string which is the value of the
``charset`` parameter in the :mailheader:`Content-Type` header for the
represented subpart. If the subpart has no :mailheader:`Content-Type`
header, no ``charset`` parameter, or is not of the :mimetype:`text` main
MIME type, then that item in the returned list will be *failobj*.
.. method:: is_attachment
Return ``True`` if there is a :mailheader:`Content-Disposition` header
and its (case insensitive) value is ``attachment``, ``False`` otherwise.
.. versionchanged:: 3.4.2
is_attachment is now a method instead of a property, for consistency
with :meth:`~email.message.Message.is_multipart`.
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.. method:: get_content_disposition()
Return the lowercased value (without parameters) of the message's
:mailheader:`Content-Disposition` header if it has one, or ``None``. The
possible values for this method are *inline*, *attachment* or ``None``
if the message follows :rfc:`2183`.
.. versionadded:: 3.5
The following methods relate to interrogating and manipulating the content
(payload) of the message.
.. method:: walk()
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The :meth:`walk` method is an all-purpose generator which can be used to
iterate over all the parts and subparts of a message object tree, in
depth-first traversal order. You will typically use :meth:`walk` as the
iterator in a ``for`` loop; each iteration returns the next subpart.
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Here's an example that prints the MIME type of every part of a multipart
message structure:
.. testsetup::
from email import message_from_binary_file
with open('../Lib/test/test_email/data/msg_16.txt', 'rb') as f:
msg = message_from_binary_file(f)
.. doctest::
>>> for part in msg.walk():
... print(part.get_content_type())
multipart/report
text/plain
message/delivery-status
text/plain
text/plain
message/rfc822
text/plain
``walk`` iterates over the subparts of any part where
:meth:`is_multipart` returns ``True``, even though
``msg.get_content_maintype() == 'multipart'`` may return ``False``. We
can see this in our example by making use of the ``_structure`` debug
helper function:
.. doctest::
>>> from email.iterators import _structure
>>> for part in msg.walk():
... print(part.get_content_maintype() == 'multipart',
... part.is_multipart())
True True
False False
False True
False False
False False
False True
False False
>>> _structure(msg)
multipart/report
text/plain
message/delivery-status
text/plain
text/plain
message/rfc822
text/plain
Here the ``message`` parts are not ``multiparts``, but they do contain
subparts. ``is_multipart()`` returns ``True`` and ``walk`` descends
into the subparts.
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.. method:: get_body(preferencelist=('related', 'html', 'plain'))
Return the MIME part that is the best candidate to be the "body" of the
message.
*preferencelist* must be a sequence of strings from the set ``related``,
``html``, and ``plain``, and indicates the order of preference for the
content type of the part returned.
Start looking for candidate matches with the object on which the
``get_body`` method is called.
If ``related`` is not included in *preferencelist*, consider the root
part (or subpart of the root part) of any related encountered as a
candidate if the (sub-)part matches a preference.
When encountering a ``multipart/related``, check the ``start`` parameter
and if a part with a matching :mailheader:`Content-ID` is found, consider
only it when looking for candidate matches. Otherwise consider only the
first (default root) part of the ``multipart/related``.
If a part has a :mailheader:`Content-Disposition` header, only consider
the part a candidate match if the value of the header is ``inline``.
If none of the candidates matches any of the preferences in
*preferencelist*, return ``None``.
Notes: (1) For most applications the only *preferencelist* combinations
that really make sense are ``('plain',)``, ``('html', 'plain')``, and the
default ``('related', 'html', 'plain')``. (2) Because matching starts
with the object on which ``get_body`` is called, calling ``get_body`` on
a ``multipart/related`` will return the object itself unless
*preferencelist* has a non-default value. (3) Messages (or message parts)
that do not specify a :mailheader:`Content-Type` or whose
:mailheader:`Content-Type` header is invalid will be treated as if they
are of type ``text/plain``, which may occasionally cause ``get_body`` to
return unexpected results.
.. method:: iter_attachments()
Return an iterator over all of the immediate sub-parts of the message
that are not candidate "body" parts. That is, skip the first occurrence
of each of ``text/plain``, ``text/html``, ``multipart/related``, or
``multipart/alternative`` (unless they are explicitly marked as
attachments via :mailheader:`Content-Disposition: attachment`), and
return all remaining parts. When applied directly to a
``multipart/related``, return an iterator over the all the related parts
except the root part (ie: the part pointed to by the ``start`` parameter,
or the first part if there is no ``start`` parameter or the ``start``
parameter doesn't match the :mailheader:`Content-ID` of any of the
parts). When applied directly to a ``multipart/alternative`` or a
non-``multipart``, return an empty iterator.
.. method:: iter_parts()
Return an iterator over all of the immediate sub-parts of the message,
which will be empty for a non-``multipart``. (See also
:meth:`~email.message.EmailMessage.walk`.)
.. method:: get_content(*args, content_manager=None, **kw)
Call the :meth:`~email.contentmanager.ContentManager.get_content` method
of the *content_manager*, passing self as the message object, and passing
along any other arguments or keywords as additional arguments. If
*content_manager* is not specified, use the ``content_manager`` specified
by the current :mod:`~email.policy`.
.. method:: set_content(*args, content_manager=None, **kw)
Call the :meth:`~email.contentmanager.ContentManager.set_content` method
of the *content_manager*, passing self as the message object, and passing
along any other arguments or keywords as additional arguments. If
*content_manager* is not specified, use the ``content_manager`` specified
by the current :mod:`~email.policy`.
.. method:: make_related(boundary=None)
Convert a non-``multipart`` message into a ``multipart/related`` message,
moving any existing :mailheader:`Content-` headers and payload into a
(new) first part of the ``multipart``. If *boundary* is specified, use
it as the boundary string in the multipart, otherwise leave the boundary
to be automatically created when it is needed (for example, when the
message is serialized).
.. method:: make_alternative(boundary=None)
Convert a non-``multipart`` or a ``multipart/related`` into a
``multipart/alternative``, moving any existing :mailheader:`Content-`
headers and payload into a (new) first part of the ``multipart``. If
*boundary* is specified, use it as the boundary string in the multipart,
otherwise leave the boundary to be automatically created when it is
needed (for example, when the message is serialized).
.. method:: make_mixed(boundary=None)
Convert a non-``multipart``, a ``multipart/related``, or a
``multipart-alternative`` into a ``multipart/mixed``, moving any existing
:mailheader:`Content-` headers and payload into a (new) first part of the
``multipart``. If *boundary* is specified, use it as the boundary string
in the multipart, otherwise leave the boundary to be automatically
created when it is needed (for example, when the message is serialized).
.. method:: add_related(*args, content_manager=None, **kw)
If the message is a ``multipart/related``, create a new message
object, pass all of the arguments to its :meth:`set_content` method,
and :meth:`~email.message.Message.attach` it to the ``multipart``. If
the message is a non-``multipart``, call :meth:`make_related` and then
proceed as above. If the message is any other type of ``multipart``,
raise a :exc:`TypeError`. If *content_manager* is not specified, use
the ``content_manager`` specified by the current :mod:`~email.policy`.
If the added part has no :mailheader:`Content-Disposition` header,
add one with the value ``inline``.
.. method:: add_alternative(*args, content_manager=None, **kw)
If the message is a ``multipart/alternative``, create a new message
object, pass all of the arguments to its :meth:`set_content` method, and
:meth:`~email.message.Message.attach` it to the ``multipart``. If the
message is a non-``multipart`` or ``multipart/related``, call
:meth:`make_alternative` and then proceed as above. If the message is
any other type of ``multipart``, raise a :exc:`TypeError`. If
*content_manager* is not specified, use the ``content_manager`` specified
by the current :mod:`~email.policy`.
.. method:: add_attachment(*args, content_manager=None, **kw)
If the message is a ``multipart/mixed``, create a new message object,
pass all of the arguments to its :meth:`set_content` method, and
:meth:`~email.message.Message.attach` it to the ``multipart``. If the
message is a non-``multipart``, ``multipart/related``, or
``multipart/alternative``, call :meth:`make_mixed` and then proceed as
above. If *content_manager* is not specified, use the ``content_manager``
specified by the current :mod:`~email.policy`. If the added part
has no :mailheader:`Content-Disposition` header, add one with the value
``attachment``. This method can be used both for explicit attachments
(:mailheader:`Content-Disposition: attachment`) and ``inline`` attachments
(:mailheader:`Content-Disposition: inline`), by passing appropriate
options to the ``content_manager``.
.. method:: clear()
Remove the payload and all of the headers.
.. method:: clear_content()
Remove the payload and all of the :exc:`Content-` headers, leaving
all other headers intact and in their original order.
:class:`EmailMessage` objects have the following instance attributes:
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.. attribute:: preamble
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The format of a MIME document allows for some text between the blank line
following the headers, and the first multipart boundary string. Normally,
this text is never visible in a MIME-aware mail reader because it falls
outside the standard MIME armor. However, when viewing the raw text of
the message, or when viewing the message in a non-MIME aware reader, this
text can become visible.
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The *preamble* attribute contains this leading extra-armor text for MIME
documents. When the :class:`~email.parser.Parser` discovers some text
after the headers but before the first boundary string, it assigns this
text to the message's *preamble* attribute. When the
:class:`~email.generator.Generator` is writing out the plain text
representation of a MIME message, and it finds the
message has a *preamble* attribute, it will write this text in the area
between the headers and the first boundary. See :mod:`email.parser` and
:mod:`email.generator` for details.
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Note that if the message object has no preamble, the *preamble* attribute
will be ``None``.
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.. attribute:: epilogue
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The *epilogue* attribute acts the same way as the *preamble* attribute,
except that it contains text that appears between the last boundary and
the end of the message. As with the :attr:`~EmailMessage.preamble`,
if there is no epilog text this attribute will be ``None``.
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.. attribute:: defects
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The *defects* attribute contains a list of all the problems found when
parsing this message. See :mod:`email.errors` for a detailed description
of the possible parsing defects.
.. class:: MIMEPart(policy=default)
This class represents a subpart of a MIME message. It is identical to
:class:`EmailMessage`, except that no :mailheader:`MIME-Version` headers are
added when :meth:`~EmailMessage.set_content` is called, since sub-parts do
not need their own :mailheader:`MIME-Version` headers.
.. rubric:: Footnotes
.. [1] Originally added in 3.4 as a :term:`provisional module <provisional
package>`. Docs for legacy message class moved to
:ref:`compat32_message`.