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<H2><A NAME="SECTION0014220000000000000000">
12.2.2 Parsing email messages</A>
</H2>
<A NAME="module-email.Parser"></A>
<P>
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.
<P>
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.
<P>
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="#foot57132"><SUP>12.1</SUP></A>.
<P>
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.
<P>
<BR><HR><H4>Footnotes</H4>
<DL>
<DT><A NAME="foot57132">...
parser</A><A
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
parsers.
</DD>
</DL>
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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>
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<span class="release-info">Release 2.4.3, documentation updated on 29 March 2006.</span>
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