cpython/Doc/library/mimify.rst

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:mod:`mimify` --- MIME processing of mail messages
==================================================
.. module:: mimify
:synopsis: Mimification and unmimification of mail messages.
.. deprecated:: 2.3
The :mod:`email` package should be used in preference to the :mod:`mimify`
module. This module is present only to maintain backward compatibility.
The :mod:`mimify` module defines two functions to convert mail messages to and
from MIME format. The mail message can be either a simple message or a
so-called multipart message. Each part is treated separately. Mimifying (a part
of) a message entails encoding the message as quoted-printable if it contains
any characters that cannot be represented using 7-bit ASCII. Unmimifying (a
part of) a message entails undoing the quoted-printable encoding. Mimify and
unmimify are especially useful when a message has to be edited before being
sent. Typical use would be::
unmimify message
edit message
mimify message
send message
The modules defines the following user-callable functions and user-settable
variables:
.. function:: mimify(infile, outfile)
Copy the message in *infile* to *outfile*, converting parts to quoted-printable
and adding MIME mail headers when necessary. *infile* and *outfile* can be file
objects (actually, any object that has a :meth:`readline` method (for *infile*)
or a :meth:`write` method (for *outfile*)) or strings naming the files. If
*infile* and *outfile* are both strings, they may have the same value.
.. function:: unmimify(infile, outfile[, decode_base64])
Copy the message in *infile* to *outfile*, decoding all quoted-printable parts.
*infile* and *outfile* can be file objects (actually, any object that has a
:meth:`readline` method (for *infile*) or a :meth:`write` method (for
*outfile*)) or strings naming the files. If *infile* and *outfile* are both
strings, they may have the same value. If the *decode_base64* argument is
provided and tests true, any parts that are coded in the base64 encoding are
decoded as well.
.. function:: mime_decode_header(line)
Return a decoded version of the encoded header line in *line*. This only
supports the ISO 8859-1 charset (Latin-1).
.. function:: mime_encode_header(line)
Return a MIME-encoded version of the header line in *line*.
.. data:: MAXLEN
By default, a part will be encoded as quoted-printable when it contains any
non-ASCII characters (characters with the 8th bit set), or if there are any
lines longer than :const:`MAXLEN` characters (default value 200).
.. data:: CHARSET
When not specified in the mail headers, a character set must be filled in. The
string used is stored in :const:`CHARSET`, and the default value is ISO-8859-1
(also known as Latin1 (latin-one)).
This module can also be used from the command line. Usage is as follows::
mimify.py -e [-l length] [infile [outfile]]
mimify.py -d [-b] [infile [outfile]]
to encode (mimify) and decode (unmimify) respectively. *infile* defaults to
standard input, *outfile* defaults to standard output. The same file can be
specified for input and output.
If the **-l** option is given when encoding, if there are any lines longer than
the specified *length*, the containing part will be encoded.
If the **-b** option is given when decoding, any base64 parts will be decoded as
well.
.. seealso::
Module :mod:`quopri`
Encode and decode MIME quoted-printable files.