File I/O, rfc822, and stdin/stdout

[Sheila King]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2001 01:40:43 -0600, Eric Rahmig <erahmig at minn.net> wrote in
comp.lang.python in article <mailman.979458074.1585.python-list at python.org>:

:If you're not using qmail's 'preline' utility in your .qmail files
:that might cause a problem. Without the use of 'preline' the email
:message your script sees will NOT start with a From line and will
:NOT contain a Return-Path header.

You know, at some point I had been using preline, but eventually I removed it.
It didn't seem to be accomplishing much (of course, I had so many other errors
at that point ...

Anyhow, just now I put it back in, to see what would happen. At least, it
delivered an e-mail.

:I'm new to Python and have no experience with the rfc822 module. If
:it is strict in its message parsing and expects a message to contain
:a From line and a Return-Path header then use of preline should help
:you:
:
:.qmail-foo:
:|preline somescript.py ...

Well, apparently rfc822 requires those lines, because at least now it is
delivering a message.

Here is the script I just ran:

-------------------------------------------
#! /usr/bin/python

import sys, rfc822

raw_message = sys.stdin

inheaders=rfc822.Message(raw_message)
body=raw_message.read()

print inheaders
print
print body
-------------------------------------------

Here is the e-mail I just received:
-------------------------------------------
Return-Path: <sheila at thinkspot.net>
Delivered-To: xthinkspot-myuserID at thinkspot.net
Received: (qmail 7982 invoked by uid 41121); 14 Jan 2001 15:30:48 -0000
Date: 14 Jan 2001 15:30:48 -0000
Message-ID: <20010114153048.7981.qmail at nine.futurequest.net>
From: sheila at thinkspot.net
Cc: recipient list not shown: ;
Delivered-To: xthinkspot-mytestaddress at thinkspot.net

<rfc822.Message instance at 80bf6d8>
-------------------------------------------

That's it. The whole message.

first of all, the fact that there is no To: field or Subject field in the
message, shows that the headers that came out of my script are somehow broken
(because I did have a To: and a Subject: in the test mail I sent). Secondly,
why is "print body" causing this line?
<rfc822.Message instance at 80bf6d8>
?

When I ran the following script on a DOS prompt, where I have changed only the
source of input:
-------------------------------------------
#! /usr/bin/python

import sys, rfc822

#raw_message = sys.stdin
raw_message=open("message4.txt","r")

inheaders=rfc822.Message(raw_message)
body=raw_message.read()

print inheaders
print
print body
-------------------------------------------

The entire message body (along with headers) is printed out to the screen.

Anyhow, I guess I will go back to trying to write the messages to files, so I
can see exactly what the script is putting out, and try to figure out what the
problem is.

Thanks for suggesting preline. It did help.

--
Sheila King
http://www.thinkspot.net/sheila/
http://www.k12groups.org/