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<title>12.9 mimify -- MIME processing of mail messages</title>
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<H1><A NAME="SECTION0014900000000000000000">
12.9 <tt class="module">mimify</tt> --
MIME processing of mail messages</A>
</H1>
<P>
<A NAME="module-mimify"></A>
<P>
<div class="versionnote"><b>Deprecated since release 2.3.</b>
The <tt class="module"><a href="module-email.html">email</a></tt> package should be used in
preference to the <tt class="module">mimify</tt> module. This
module is present only to maintain backward
compatibility.</div><p></p>
<P>
The <tt class="module">mimify</tt> module defines two functions to convert mail messages to
and from MIME format. The mail message can be either a simple message
or a so-called multipart message. Each part is treated separately.
Mimifying (a part of) a message entails encoding the message as
quoted-printable if it contains any characters that cannot be
represented using 7-bit ASCII. Unmimifying (a part of) a message
entails undoing the quoted-printable encoding. Mimify and unmimify
are especially useful when a message has to be edited before being
sent. Typical use would be:
<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
unmimify message
edit message
mimify message
send message
</pre></div>
<P>
The modules defines the following user-callable functions and
user-settable variables:
<P>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
<td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-4052' xml:id='l2h-4052' class="function">mimify</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
<td><var>infile, outfile</var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Copy the message in <var>infile</var> to <var>outfile</var>, converting parts to
quoted-printable and adding MIME mail headers when necessary.
<var>infile</var> and <var>outfile</var> can be file objects (actually, any
object that has a <tt class="method">readline()</tt> method (for <var>infile</var>) or a
<tt class="method">write()</tt> method (for <var>outfile</var>)) or strings naming the files.
If <var>infile</var> and <var>outfile</var> are both strings, they may have the
same value.
</dl>
<P>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
<td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-4053' xml:id='l2h-4053' class="function">unmimify</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
<td><var>infile, outfile</var><big>[</big><var>, decode_base64</var><big>]</big><var></var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Copy the message in <var>infile</var> to <var>outfile</var>, decoding all
quoted-printable parts. <var>infile</var> and <var>outfile</var> can be file
objects (actually, any object that has a <tt class="method">readline()</tt> method (for
<var>infile</var>) or a <tt class="method">write()</tt> method (for <var>outfile</var>)) or strings
naming the files. If <var>infile</var> and <var>outfile</var> are both strings,
they may have the same value.
If the <var>decode_base64</var> argument is provided and tests true, any
parts that are coded in the base64 encoding are decoded as well.
</dl>
<P>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
<td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-4054' xml:id='l2h-4054' class="function">mime_decode_header</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
<td><var>line</var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Return a decoded version of the encoded header line in <var>line</var>.
This only supports the ISO 8859-1 charset (Latin-1).
</dl>
<P>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
<td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-4055' xml:id='l2h-4055' class="function">mime_encode_header</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
<td><var>line</var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Return a MIME-encoded version of the header line in <var>line</var>.
</dl>
<P>
<dl><dt><b><tt id='l2h-4056' xml:id='l2h-4056'>MAXLEN</tt></b></dt>
<dd>
By default, a part will be encoded as quoted-printable when it
contains any non-ASCII characters (characters with the 8th bit
set), or if there are any lines longer than <tt class="constant">MAXLEN</tt> characters
(default value 200).
</dd></dl>
<P>
<dl><dt><b><tt id='l2h-4057' xml:id='l2h-4057'>CHARSET</tt></b></dt>
<dd>
When not specified in the mail headers, a character set must be filled
in. The string used is stored in <tt class="constant">CHARSET</tt>, and the default
value is ISO-8859-1 (also known as Latin1 (latin-one)).
</dd></dl>
<P>
This module can also be used from the command line. Usage is as
follows:
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
mimify.py -e [-l length] [infile [outfile]]
mimify.py -d [-b] [infile [outfile]]
</pre></div>
to encode (mimify) and decode (unmimify) respectively. <var>infile</var>
defaults to standard input, <var>outfile</var> defaults to standard output.
The same file can be specified for input and output.
<P>
If the <strong>-l</strong> option is given when encoding, if there are any lines
longer than the specified <var>length</var>, the containing part will be
encoded.
<P>
If the <strong>-b</strong> option is given when decoding, any base64 parts will
be decoded as well.
<P>
<div class="seealso">
<p class="heading">See Also:</p>
<dl compact="compact" class="seemodule">
<dt>Module <b><tt class="module"><a href="module-quopri.html">quopri</a></tt>:</b>
<dd>Encode and decode MIME quoted-printable files.
</dl>
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<span class="release-info">Release 2.4.3, documentation updated on 29 March 2006.</span>
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