poplib for multihomed machines

[Elbert Lev]

There no way to tell the classPOP3 which of local interfaces (NICs) to
use for connections). In most cases it is OK, but requires proper
routing.

Here is the __init__ from POP3

class POP3
    def __init__(self, host, port = POP3_PORT):
        self.host = host
        self.port = port
        msg = "getaddrinfo returns an empty list"
        self.sock = None
        for res in socket.getaddrinfo(self.host, self.port, 0,
socket.SOCK_STREAM):
            af, socktype, proto, canonname, sa = res
            try:
                self.sock = socket.socket(af, socktype, proto)
                self.sock.connect(sa)
            except socket.error, msg:
                if self.sock:
                    self.sock.close()
                self.sock = None
                continue
            break
        if not self.sock:
            raise socket.error, msg
        self.file = self.sock.makefile('rb')
        self._debugging = 0
        self.welcome = self._getresp()

Can I subclass it in such a way, that derived class takes care of the
problem?

def __init__ (self, host, port = POP3_PORT, interface = ""):
	POP3.__init..(....)
	
	will create the socket and there is no way to bind it to local
interface
	

The problem with POP3 class is: it connects during __init__ and it is
"hard coded". I do not see any way to change this behavior with no
rewrite of POP3 class.

Do you?