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<title>12.2.2 Parsing email messages
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<H2><A NAME=
"SECTION0014220000000000000000">
12.2.2 Parsing email messages
</A>
<A NAME=
"module-email.Parser"></A>
Message object structures can be created in one of two ways: they can be
created from whole cloth by instantiating
<tt class=
"class">Message
</tt> objects and
stringing them together via
<tt class=
"method">attach()
</tt> and
<tt class=
"method">set_payload()
</tt> calls, or they can be created by parsing a flat text
representation of the email message.
The
<tt class=
"module">email
</tt> package provides a standard parser that understands
most email document structures, including MIME documents. You can
pass the parser a string or a file object, and the parser will return
to you the root
<tt class=
"class">Message
</tt> instance of the object structure. For
simple, non-MIME messages the payload of this root object will likely
be a string containing the text of the message. For MIME
messages, the root object will return
<code>True
</code> from its
<tt class=
"method">is_multipart()
</tt> method, and the subparts can be accessed via
the
<tt class=
"method">get_payload()
</tt> and
<tt class=
"method">walk()
</tt> methods.
There are actually two parser interfaces available for use, the classic
<tt class=
"class">Parser
</tt> API and the incremental
<tt class=
"class">FeedParser
</tt> API. The classic
<tt class=
"class">Parser
</tt> API is fine if you have the entire text of the message in
memory as a string, or if the entire message lives in a file on the file
system.
<tt class=
"class">FeedParser
</tt> is more appropriate for when you're reading the
message from a stream which might block waiting for more input (e.g. reading
an email message from a socket). The
<tt class=
"class">FeedParser
</tt> can consume and parse
the message incrementally, and only returns the root object when you close the
parser
<A NAME=
"tex2html101"
HREF=
"#foot56991"><SUP>12.1</SUP></A>.
Note that the parser can be extended in limited ways, and of course
you can implement your own parser completely from scratch. There is
no magical connection between the
<tt class=
"module">email
</tt> package's bundled
parser and the
<tt class=
"class">Message
</tt> class, so your custom parser can create
message object trees any way it finds necessary.
<BR><HR><H4>Footnotes
</H4>
<DT><A NAME=
"foot56991">...
href=
"module-email.Parser.html#tex2html101"><SUP>12.1</SUP></A></DT>
<DD>As of email package version
3.0, introduced in
Python
2.4, the classic
<tt class=
"class">Parser
</tt> was re-implemented in terms of the
<tt class=
"class">FeedParser
</tt>, so the semantics and results are identical between the two
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<A NAME=
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<LI><A href=
"node583.html">12.2.2.1 FeedParser API
</a>
<LI><A href=
"node584.html">12.2.2.2 Parser class API
</a>
<LI><A href=
"node585.html">12.2.2.3 Additional notes
</a>
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<span class=
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2.4.2, documentation updated on
28 September
2005.
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