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Using the email module to recursively unpack a multipart MIME message (Python recipe) by Matthew Cowles
ActiveState Code (http://code.activestate.com/recipes/86675/)

An example of using the email module to unpack and decode a MIME message.

Python, 50 lines
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#!/usr/bin/env python

import email.Message
import email.Parser
import os
import sys

# This is the hard way for illustration. In practice,
# msg.walk() is simpler.
def writePartsRecurse(msg):
  global partCounter
  # Message/RFC822 parts are bundled this way
  while isinstance(msg.get_payload(),email.Message.Message):
    msg=msg.get_payload()

  if msg.is_multipart():
    for subMsg in msg.get_payload():
       writePartsRecurse(subMsg)
  else:
    name=msg.get_param("name")
    if name==None:
      name="part-%i" % partCounter
    partCounter+=1
    # In real life, make sure that name is a reasonable
    # filename on your OS.
    f=open(name,"wb")
    f.write(msg.get_payload(decode=1))
    f.close()
    print name
  return None

def main():
  global partCounter

  if len(sys.argv)==1:
    print "Usage: %s filename" % os.path.basename(sys.argv[0])
    sys.exit(1)

  mailFile=open(sys.argv[1],"rb")
  p=email.Parser.Parser()
  msg=p.parse(mailFile)
  mailFile.close()

  partCounter=1
  writePartsRecurse(msg)
  return None


if __name__=="__main__":
  main()

The email module makes manipulating MIME messages easier than it was before. It's still not trivial so the example may be useful. This example does the recursive unbundling itself. An alternative is to use the message's walk() method.

Tags: network