The GITS Blog » email

mailer version 0.5 released

Ryan Ginstrom — Thu, 28 May 2009 01:02:05 +0000

I've released version 0.5 of my mailer python module for sending emails. Thanks to a patch from Douglas Mayle, this version makes it possible to send HTML emails with attachments (previous versions only let you do one or the other).

Version 0.2 of mailer module released

Ryan Ginstrom — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:45:19 +0000

I updated my mailer module (blogged about here) to version 0.2, and also uploaded it to pyPI.

Improvements in this version:

Default arguments in Message.__init__() method
Support for non-ascii charsets (in body and subject)
Support for Python 2.4

With the support for non-ascii encodings, you can now do this:

from mailer import Mailer
from mailer import Message

mailer = Mailer('smtp.example.com')

msg = Message(From="me@example.com", To="you@example.com")
msg.Subject = "テキストメール"
msg.Body = "これは、日本語のキストメールでございます。"
msg.charset = "utf-8"

mailer.send(msg)

And the Message instance will properly encode the subject line and message body. Note that there's currently no support for Unicode strings; you've got to pass in encoded strings.

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on this module.

The mailer module also has a home page.

The full code of the new module is below.

#coding: UTF8
"""
mailer module

Simple front end to the smtplib and email modules,
to simplify sending email.

A lot of this code was taken from the online examples in the
email module documentation:
http://docs.python.org/library/email-examples.html

Released under MIT license.

Sample code:

import mailer

message = mailer.Message()
message.From = "me@example.com"
message.To = "you@example.com"
message.Subject = "My Vacation"
message.Body = open("letter.txt", "rb").read()
message.attach("picture.jpg")

mailer = mailer.Mailer('mail.example.com')
mailer.send(message)

"""
import smtplib

# this is to support name changes
# from version 2.4 to version 2.5
try:
from email import encoders
from email.header import make_header
from email.message import Message
from email.mime.audio import MIMEAudio
from email.mime.base import MIMEBase
from email.mime.image import MIMEImage
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
except ImportError:
from email import Encoders as encoders
from email.Header import make_header
from email.MIMEMessage import Message
from email.MIMEAudio import MIMEAudio
from email.MIMEBase import MIMEBase
from email.MIMEImage import MIMEImage
from email.MIMEMultipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.MIMEText import MIMEText

# For guessing MIME type based on file name extension
import mimetypes

from os import path

__version__ = "0.2"
__author__ = "Ryan Ginstrom"
__license__ = "MIT"
__description__ = "A module to send email simply in Python"

class Mailer(object):
"""
Represents an SMTP connection.

Use login() to log in with a username and password.
"""

def __init__(self, host="localhost"):
self.host = host
self._usr = None
self._pwd = None

def login(self, usr, pwd):
self._usr = usr
self._pwd = pwd

def send(self, msg):
"""
Send one message or a sequence of messages.

Every time you call send, the mailer creates a new
connection, so if you have several emails to send, pass
them as a list:
mailer.send([msg1, msg2, msg3])
"""
server = smtplib.SMTP(self.host)

if self._usr and self._pwd:
server.login(self._usr, self._pwd)

try:
num_msgs = len(msg)
for m in msg:
self._send(server, m)
except TypeError:
self._send(server, msg)

server.quit()

def _send(self, server, msg):
"""
Sends a single message using the server
we created in send()
"""
me = msg.From
you = [x.strip() for x in msg.To.split(",")]
server.sendmail(me, you, msg.as_string())

class Message(object):
"""
Represents an email message.

Set the To, From, Subject, and Body attributes as
plain-text strings. Optionally, set the Html attribute
to send an HTML email, or use the attach() method
to attach files.

Use the charset property to send messages using other
than us-ascii

If you specify an attachments argument, it should be a
list of attachment filenames: ["file1.txt", "file2.txt"]

Send using the Mailer class.
"""

def __init__(self, To=None, From=None, Subject=None,
Body=None, Html=None, attachments=None,
charset=None):
self.attachments = attachments or []
self._to = To
self.From = From
self.Subject = Subject
self.Body = Body
self.Html = Html
self.charset = charset or 'us-ascii'

def _get_to(self):
"""
Making this a property so we can be permissive about
how to set the "To" field, i.e.
me;you/me,you/me; you/me, you
"""
addrs = self._to.replace(";", ",").split(",")
return ", ".join([x.strip()
for x in addrs])
def _set_to(self, to):
self._to = to

To = property(_get_to, _set_to,
doc="""The recipient(s) of the email.
Separate multiple recipients with
commas or semicolons""")

def as_string(self):
"""Get the email as a string to send in the mailer"""

if not self.attachments:
return self._plaintext()
else:
return self._multipart()

def _plaintext(self):
"""Plain text email with no attachments"""

if not self.Html:
msg = MIMEText(self.Body, 'plain', self.charset)
else:
msg = self._with_html()

self._set_info(msg)
return msg.as_string()

def _with_html(self):
"""There's an html part"""

outer = MIMEMultipart('alternative')

part1 = MIMEText(self.Body, 'plain', self.charset)
part2 = MIMEText(self.Html, 'html', self.charset)

outer.attach(part1)
outer.attach(part2)

return outer

def _set_info(self, msg):
if self.charset == 'us-ascii':
msg['Subject'] = self.Subject
else:
subject = unicode(self.Subject, self.charset)
msg['Subject'] = str(make_header([(subject,
self.charset)]))
msg['From'] = self.From
msg['To'] = self.To

def _multipart(self):
"""The email has attachments"""

msg = MIMEMultipart()

msg.attach(MIMEText(self.Body, 'plain', self.charset))

self._set_info(msg)
msg.preamble = self.Subject

for filename in self.attachments:
self._add_attachment(msg, filename)
return msg.as_string()

def _add_attachment(self, outer, filename):
ctype, encoding = mimetypes.guess_type(filename)
if ctype is None or encoding is not None:
# No guess could be made, or the file is encoded
# (compressed), so use a generic bag-of-bits type.
ctype = 'application/octet-stream'
maintype, subtype = ctype.split('/', 1)
fp = open(filename, 'rb')
if maintype == 'text':
# Note: we should handle calculating the charset
msg = MIMEText(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype)
elif maintype == 'image':
msg = MIMEImage(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype)
elif maintype == 'audio':
msg = MIMEAudio(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype)
else:
msg = MIMEBase(maintype, subtype)
msg.set_payload(fp.read())
# Encode the payload using Base64
encoders.encode_base64(msg)
fp.close()
# Set the filename parameter
msg.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment',
filename=path.basename(filename))
outer.attach(msg)

def attach(self, filename):
"""
Attach a file to the email. Specify the name of
the file; Message will figure out the MIME type
and load the file.
"""

self.attachments.append(filename)

A module to send email simply in Python

Ryan Ginstrom — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:14:13 +0000

Update: I've released version 0.3 of the mailer module. See the mailer home page for details and the latest version.

The email and smtplib modules in Python are very powerful, but they're also a bit complex when you just want to send an email.

I wrote the mailer module as a front end to these two modules, in order to make the task of sending email in Python using SMTP as simple as possible.

Below are some examples.

Send a simple plain text email

import mailer

message = mailer.Message()
message.From = "me@example.com"
message.To = "you@example.com"
message.Subject = "My Vacation"
message.Body = open("letter.txt", "rb").read()

mailer = mailer.Mailer('mail.example.com')
mailer.send(message)

Send an email with an attachment

message = mailer.Message()
message.From = "me@example.com"
message.To = "you@example.com"
message.Subject = "My Vacation"
message.Body = open("letter.txt", "rb").read()
message.attach("picture.jpg")

mailer = mailer.Mailer('mail.example.com')
mailer.send(message)

Send an HTML email

message = mailer.Message()
message.From = "me@example.com"
message.To = "you@example.com"
message.Subject = "My Vacation"
message.Body = open("letter.txt", "rb").read()
message.Html = """This email is in HTML.
com">Here's a link."""

mailer = mailer.Mailer('mail.example.com')
mailer.send(message)

Download the mailer module (zip file).

Edit: Here's the source code of the mailer module.

#coding: UTF8
"""
mailer module

Simple front end to the smtplib and email modules,
to simplify sending email.

A lot of this code was taken from the online examples in the
email module documentation:
http://docs.python.org/library/email-examples.html

Released under MIT license.

Sample code:

import mailer

message = mailer.Message()
message.From = "me@example.com"
message.To = "you@example.com"
message.Subject = "My Vacation"
message.Body = open("letter.txt", "rb").read()
message.attach("picture.jpg")

mailer = mailer.Mailer('mail.example.com')
mailer.send(message)

"""
import smtplib

# Import the email modules we'll need
from email import encoders
from email.message import Message
from email.mime.audio import MIMEAudio
from email.mime.base import MIMEBase
from email.mime.image import MIMEImage
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.text import MIMEText

# For guessing MIME type based on file name extension
import mimetypes

from os import path

__version__ = "0.1"
__author__ = "Ryan Ginstrom"
__license__ = "MIT"

class Mailer(object):
"""
Represents an SMTP connection.

Use login() to log in with a username and password.
"""

def __init__(self, host="localhost"):
self.host = host
self._usr = None
self._pwd = None

def login(self, usr, pwd):
self._usr = usr
self._pwd = pwd

def send(self, msg):
"""
Send one message or a sequence of messages.

Every time you call send, the mailer creates a new
connection, so if you have several emails to send, pass
them as a list:
mailer.send([msg1, msg2, msg3])
"""
server = smtplib.SMTP(self.host)

if self._usr and self._pwd:
server.login(self._usr, self._pwd)

try:
for m in msg:
self._send(server, m)
except TypeError:
self._send(server, msg)

server.quit()

def _send(self, server, msg):
"""
Sends a single message using the server
we created in send()
"""
me = msg.From
you = [x.strip() for x in msg.To.split(",")]
server.sendmail(me, you, msg.as_string())

class Message(object):
"""
Represents an email message.

Set the To, From, Subject, and Body attributes as plain-text strings.
Optionally, set the Html attribute to send an HTML email, or use the
attach() method to attach files.

Even when sending an HTML email, you have to set the Body
attribute as the alternative text version.

Send using the Mailer class.
"""

def __init__(self):
self.attachments = []
self._to = None
self.From = None
self.Subject = None
self.Body = None
self.Html = None

def _get_to(self):
addrs = self._to.replace(";", ",").split(",")
return ", ".join([x.strip()
for x in addrs])
def _set_to(self, to):
self._to = to

To = property(_get_to, _set_to,
doc="""The recipient(s) of the email.
Separate multiple recipients with commas or semicolons""")

def as_string(self):
"""Get the email as a string to send in the mailer"""

if not self.attachments:
return self._plaintext()
else:
return self._multipart()

def _plaintext(self):
"""Plain text email with no attachments"""

if not self.Html:
msg = MIMEText(self.Body)
else:
msg = self._with_html()

self._set_info(msg)
return msg.as_string()

def _with_html(self):
"""There's an html part"""

outer = MIMEMultipart('alternative')

part1 = MIMEText(self.Body, 'plain')
part2 = MIMEText(self.Html, 'html')

outer.attach(part1)
outer.attach(part2)

return outer

def _set_info(self, msg):
msg['Subject'] = self.Subject
msg['From'] = self.From
msg['To'] = self.To

def _multipart(self):
"""The email has attachments"""

msg = MIMEMultipart()

msg.attach(MIMEText(self.Body, 'plain'))

self._set_info(msg)
msg.preamble = self.Subject

for filename in self.attachments:
self._add_attachment(msg, filename)
return msg.as_string()

def _add_attachment(self, outer, filename):
ctype, encoding = mimetypes.guess_type(filename)
if ctype is None or encoding is not None:
# No guess could be made, or the file is encoded (compressed), so
# use a generic bag-of-bits type.
ctype = 'application/octet-stream'
maintype, subtype = ctype.split('/', 1)
fp = open(filename, 'rb')
if maintype == 'text':
# Note: we should handle calculating the charset
msg = MIMEText(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype)
elif maintype == 'image':
msg = MIMEImage(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype)
elif maintype == 'audio':
msg = MIMEAudio(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype)
else:
msg = MIMEBase(maintype, subtype)
msg.set_payload(fp.read())
# Encode the payload using Base64
encoders.encode_base64(msg)
fp.close()
# Set the filename parameter
msg.add_header('Content-Disposition',
'attachment',
filename=path.basename(filename))
outer.attach(msg)

def attach(self, filename):
"""
Attach a file to the email. Specify the name of the file;
Message will figure out the MIME type and load the file.
"""

self.attachments.append(filename)

End of an era: Goodbye, fax-to-email service

Ryan Ginstrom — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:49:28 +0000

Faxes used to be an essential tool for translators, but they seem to be going the way of the dodo these days. Back when faxes were on thermal paper and I got most of my translation documents via fax, having a fax-to-email service was a godsend. It was quicker and cheaper, the faxes were easier to manage, and the image quality was better.

I've been using a fax-to-email service for almost 10 years now. I've most recently been using a Japanese service named faxcast. Last month I got a notice from them saying that they were effectively raising their fee by $50/year (by getting rid of their yearly plan, where we paid 10 months' worth for a year).

This caused me to reexamine my fax usage. Going back over the past year, I found that I've only received two faxes through the service, neither of which were work related. Nowadays, almost all the translation documents I get are in electronic form. Companies that used to send me faxes now scan them themselves and send them as PDF attachments via email.

So there's really not much use in me keeping up this service. I have a fax machine in my office for the rare occasion that anyone would want to send me a fax, and $300/year for a service I never use is a bit much. I therefore decided to cancel my fax-to-email service as of January 20. I guess I should thank faxcast for raising their prices and making me reconsider their service (although it might not be exactly the effect they were hoping for ).

Virus scam targeting translators

Ryan Ginstrom — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:27:00 +0000

A number of translators have been receiving scam emails containing a virus attachment, disguised as a file to be translated. Here's the text of the email I received:

Subject: High Quality Translation

I haven't seen you for weeks

I need this document translated, and the translation is to be of high quality.
The attorney asked me to be especially careful with page 2. As I need to submit the document tomorrow, please have it checked and translated for me today.

I have deposited $150 to your credit card account that you gave me the last time.
Let me know if any questions occur.

P.S. The document is in the ZIP-compressed MS Word file attached to this message.
I look forward to getting the result ASAP.

So long
Irene Sutherland

It came with the attachment "Document.zip," which as you might expect contains a rather new virus (some anti-virus software is apparently failing to pick it up).

Several other translators have reported receiving it. The attack is somewhat novel in that it specifically targets translators. I used to get a lot of scam emails along the lines of "my daughter requires an interpreter near your hometown on date X"; presumably to be followed with a request for funds to "facilitate" the process. In my memory, however, this is the first time I've received a virus scam with a "translate this" angle. Beware, translators!