[Tutor] How to get nested boundaries in Multipart email

Sun Dec 15 17:30:33 CET 2013

Hello all,

I'm trying to script email from database data. Following the examples at http://docs.python.org/3.3/library/email-examples.html I'm able to send simple emails, multipart emails with attachments, and multipart emails with alternative text. What I'm trying to do now is get multipart emails with alternative text, that also have attachment(s). In order to do so, as I understand it I need to have two unique boundaries - one to begin the post, and separate the message from the attachment(s), and another nested within the message body, to separate the alternative text versions. Using a single unique separator displays only the attachment, without the message text.

What I need to end up with is something like this:

Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============4658086012177675674=="
MIME-Version: 1.0
Subject: Subject
From: Me
To: You

--===============4658086012177675674==
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="===============411111111111175674=="
#THIS IS THE NESTED SEPARATOR WITH 'ALTERNATIVE' TYPE

--=============== 411111111111175674==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Simple Text Message
--=============== 411111111111175674 ==
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<html>Fancy Text Message</html>
--=============== 411111111111175674 ==
--===============4658086012177675674==
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="123File.HTML"

THE ATTACHED FILE
--===============4658086012177675674==--

Building this by hand displays properly. If there's a simple way to do this with the tools provided in v3.3 I would love to learn about it. I think I could build the extra headers and separator into my text files, but I would like to learn a Python solution(s).

Thanks!

M