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-\declaremodule{standard}{email.parser}
-\modulesynopsis{Parse flat text email messages to produce a message
- object structure.}
-
-Message object structures can be created in one of two ways: they can be
-created from whole cloth by instantiating \class{Message} objects and
-stringing them together via \method{attach()} and
-\method{set_payload()} calls, or they can be created by parsing a flat text
-representation of the email message.
-
-The \module{email} 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 \class{Message} 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} from its
-\method{is_multipart()} method, and the subparts can be accessed via
-the \method{get_payload()} and \method{walk()} methods.
-
-There are actually two parser interfaces available for use, the classic
-\class{Parser} API and the incremental \class{FeedParser} API. The classic
-\class{Parser} 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. \class{FeedParser} 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 \class{FeedParser} can consume and parse
-the message incrementally, and only returns the root object when you close the
-parser\footnote{As of email package version 3.0, introduced in
-Python 2.4, the classic \class{Parser} was re-implemented in terms of the
-\class{FeedParser}, so the semantics and results are identical between the two
-parsers.}.
-
-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 \module{email} package's bundled
-parser and the \class{Message} class, so your custom parser can create
-message object trees any way it finds necessary.
-
-\subsubsection{FeedParser API}
-
-\versionadded{2.4}
-
-The \class{FeedParser}, imported from the \module{email.feedparser} module,
-provides an API that is conducive to incremental parsing of email messages,
-such as would be necessary when reading the text of an email message from a
-source that can block (e.g. a socket). The
-\class{FeedParser} can of course be used to parse an email message fully
-contained in a string or a file, but the classic \class{Parser} API may be
-more convenient for such use cases. The semantics and results of the two
-parser APIs are identical.
-
-The \class{FeedParser}'s API is simple; you create an instance, feed it a
-bunch of text until there's no more to feed it, then close the parser to
-retrieve the root message object. The \class{FeedParser} is extremely
-accurate when parsing standards-compliant messages, and it does a very good
-job of parsing non-compliant messages, providing information about how a
-message was deemed broken. It will populate a message object's \var{defects}
-attribute with a list of any problems it found in a message. See the
-\refmodule{email.errors} module for the list of defects that it can find.
-
-Here is the API for the \class{FeedParser}:
-
-\begin{classdesc}{FeedParser}{\optional{_factory}}
-Create a \class{FeedParser} instance. Optional \var{_factory} is a
-no-argument callable that will be called whenever a new message object is
-needed. It defaults to the \class{email.message.Message} class.
-\end{classdesc}
-
-\begin{methoddesc}[FeedParser]{feed}{data}
-Feed the \class{FeedParser} some more data. \var{data} should be a
-string containing one or more lines. The lines can be partial and the
-\class{FeedParser} will stitch such partial lines together properly. The
-lines in the string can have any of the common three line endings, carriage
-return, newline, or carriage return and newline (they can even be mixed).
-\end{methoddesc}
-
-\begin{methoddesc}[FeedParser]{close}{}
-Closing a \class{FeedParser} completes the parsing of all previously fed data,
-and returns the root message object. It is undefined what happens if you feed
-more data to a closed \class{FeedParser}.
-\end{methoddesc}
-
-\subsubsection{Parser class API}
-
-The \class{Parser} class, imported from the \module{email.parser} module,
-provides an API that can be used to parse a message when the complete contents
-of the message are available in a string or file. The
-\module{email.parser} module also provides a second class, called
-\class{HeaderParser} which can be used if you're only interested in
-the headers of the message. \class{HeaderParser} can be much faster in
-these situations, since it does not attempt to parse the message body,
-instead setting the payload to the raw body as a string.
-\class{HeaderParser} has the same API as the \class{Parser} class.
-
-\begin{classdesc}{Parser}{\optional{_class}}
-The constructor for the \class{Parser} class takes an optional
-argument \var{_class}. This must be a callable factory (such as a
-function or a class), and it is used whenever a sub-message object
-needs to be created. It defaults to \class{Message} (see
-\refmodule{email.message}). The factory will be called without
-arguments.
-
-The optional \var{strict} flag is ignored. \deprecated{2.4}{Because the
-\class{Parser} class is a backward compatible API wrapper around the
-new-in-Python 2.4 \class{FeedParser}, \emph{all} parsing is effectively
-non-strict. You should simply stop passing a \var{strict} flag to the
-\class{Parser} constructor.}
-
-\versionchanged[The \var{strict} flag was added]{2.2.2}
-\versionchanged[The \var{strict} flag was deprecated]{2.4}
-\end{classdesc}
-
-The other public \class{Parser} methods are:
-
-\begin{methoddesc}[Parser]{parse}{fp\optional{, headersonly}}
-Read all the data from the file-like object \var{fp}, parse the
-resulting text, and return the root message object. \var{fp} must
-support both the \method{readline()} and the \method{read()} methods
-on file-like objects.
-
-The text contained in \var{fp} must be formatted as a block of \rfc{2822}
-style headers and header continuation lines, optionally preceded by a
-envelope header. The header block is terminated either by the
-end of the data or by a blank line. Following the header block is the
-body of the message (which may contain MIME-encoded subparts).
-
-Optional \var{headersonly} is as with the \method{parse()} method.
-
-\versionchanged[The \var{headersonly} flag was added]{2.2.2}
-\end{methoddesc}
-
-\begin{methoddesc}[Parser]{parsestr}{text\optional{, headersonly}}
-Similar to the \method{parse()} method, except it takes a string
-object instead of a file-like object. Calling this method on a string
-is exactly equivalent to wrapping \var{text} in a \class{StringIO}
-instance first and calling \method{parse()}.
-
-Optional \var{headersonly} is a flag specifying whether to stop
-parsing after reading the headers or not. The default is \code{False},
-meaning it parses the entire contents of the file.
-
-\versionchanged[The \var{headersonly} flag was added]{2.2.2}
-\end{methoddesc}
-
-Since creating a message object structure from a string or a file
-object is such a common task, two functions are provided as a
-convenience. They are available in the top-level \module{email}
-package namespace.
-
-\begin{funcdesc}{message_from_string}{s\optional{, _class\optional{, strict}}}
-Return a message object structure from a string. This is exactly
-equivalent to \code{Parser().parsestr(s)}. Optional \var{_class} and
-\var{strict} are interpreted as with the \class{Parser} class constructor.
-
-\versionchanged[The \var{strict} flag was added]{2.2.2}
-\end{funcdesc}
-
-\begin{funcdesc}{message_from_file}{fp\optional{, _class\optional{, strict}}}
-Return a message object structure tree from an open file object. This
-is exactly equivalent to \code{Parser().parse(fp)}. Optional
-\var{_class} and \var{strict} are interpreted as with the
-\class{Parser} class constructor.
-
-\versionchanged[The \var{strict} flag was added]{2.2.2}
-\end{funcdesc}
-
-Here's an example of how you might use this at an interactive Python
-prompt:
-
-\begin{verbatim}
->>> import email
->>> msg = email.message_from_string(myString)
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\subsubsection{Additional notes}
-
-Here are some notes on the parsing semantics:
-
-\begin{itemize}
-\item Most non-\mimetype{multipart} type messages are parsed as a single
- message object with a string payload. These objects will return
- \code{False} for \method{is_multipart()}. Their
- \method{get_payload()} method will return a string object.
-
-\item All \mimetype{multipart} type messages will be parsed as a
- container message object with a list of sub-message objects for
- their payload. The outer container message will return
- \code{True} for \method{is_multipart()} and their
- \method{get_payload()} method will return the list of
- \class{Message} subparts.
-
-\item Most messages with a content type of \mimetype{message/*}
- (e.g. \mimetype{message/delivery-status} and
- \mimetype{message/rfc822}) will also be parsed as container
- object containing a list payload of length 1. Their
- \method{is_multipart()} method will return \code{True}. The
- single element in the list payload will be a sub-message object.
-
-\item Some non-standards compliant messages may not be internally consistent
- about their \mimetype{multipart}-edness. Such messages may have a
- \mailheader{Content-Type} header of type \mimetype{multipart}, but their
- \method{is_multipart()} method may return \code{False}. If such
- messages were parsed with the \class{FeedParser}, they will have an
- instance of the \class{MultipartInvariantViolationDefect} class in their
- \var{defects} attribute list. See \refmodule{email.errors} for
- details.
-\end{itemize}