How can we generate a traditional e-mail in Python without having to implement the formatting details ourselves? The answer is to use the modules within the powerful email package. The email package is a library for managing email messages, including MIME and other RFC 2822-based message documents.
As our first example, trad_gen_simple.py shows a program that generates a simple message. Note that when
you generate messages this way, manually setting the payload with the Message class, you should limit
yourself to using plain 7-bit ASCII text.
from email.message import Message
text = """Hello,
This is a test message.
-- Anonymous"""
msg = Message()
msg['To'] = '[email protected]'
msg['From'] = 'Test Sender <[email protected]>'
msg['Subject'] = 'Test Message'
msg.set_payload(text)
print msg.as_string()
The program is simple. It creates a Message object, sets the headers and body, and prints the result. When you run this program, you will get a nice formatted message with proper headers:
root@erlerobot:~/Python_files# python trad_gen_simple.py
To: [email protected]
From: Test Sender <[email protected]>
Subject: Test Message
Hello,
This is a test message.
-- Anonymous
root@erlerobot:~/Python_files#
While technically correct, this message is actually a bit deficient when it comes to providing enough
headers to really function in the modern world. For one thing, most e-mails should have a Date header,
in a format specific to e-mail messages. Python provides an email.utils.formatdate() routine that will
generate dates in the right format.
You should add a Message-ID header to messages. This header should be generated in such a way
that no other e-mail, anywhere in history, will ever have the same Message-ID. This might sound
difficult, but Python provides a function to help do that as well: email.utils.make_msgid().
So take a look at trad_gen_newhdrs.py, which fleshes out our first sample program into a more complete
example that sets these additional headers.
import email.utils
from email.message import Message
message = """Hello,
This is a test message.
-- Anonymous"""
msg = Message()
msg['To'] = '[email protected]'
msg['From'] = 'Test Sender <[email protected]>'
msg['Subject'] = 'Test Message'
msg['Date'] = email.utils.formatdate(localtime = 1)
msg['Message-ID'] = email.utils.make_msgid()
msg.set_payload(message)
print msg.as_string()
If you run the program, you will notice two new headers in the output.
root@erlerobot:~/Python_files# python trad_gen_newhdrs.py
To: [email protected]
From: Test Sender <[email protected]>
Subject: Test Message
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 14:31:50 +0200
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Hello,
This is a test message.
-- Anonymous
root@erlerobot:~/Python_files#