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Using the email module to recursively unpack a multipart MIME message (simpler method) (Python recipe) by Matthew Cowles
ActiveState Code (http://code.activestate.com/recipes/86676/)

An example of using the email module to unpack and decode a MIME message. This example uses the message's walk() method.

Python, 34 lines
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#!/usr/bin/env python

import email.Parser
import os
import sys

def main():
  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
  for part in msg.walk():
    if part.get_main_type()=="multipart":
      continue
    name=part.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(part.get_payload(decode=1))
    f.close()
    print name
  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.

Tags: network

1 comment

Alan Miller 16 years, 7 months ago  # | flag

get_main_type is deprecated/gone. From 2.4 on it's get_content_maintype()