
``email.generator``: Generating MIME documents
**********************************************

One of the most common tasks is to generate the flat text of the email
message represented by a message object structure.  You will need to
do this if you want to send your message via the ``smtplib`` module or
the ``nntplib`` module, or print the message on the console.  Taking a
message object structure and producing a flat text document is the job
of the ``Generator`` class.

Again, as with the ``email.parser`` module, you aren't limited to the
functionality of the bundled generator; you could write one from
scratch yourself.  However the bundled generator knows how to generate
most email in a standards-compliant way, should handle MIME and non-
MIME email messages just fine, and is designed so that the
transformation from flat text, to a message structure via the
``Parser`` class, and back to flat text, is idempotent (the input is
identical to the output) [1].  On the other hand, using the Generator
on a ``Message`` constructed by program may result in changes to the
``Message`` object as defaults are filled in.

``bytes`` output can be generated using the ``BytesGenerator`` class.
If the message object structure contains non-ASCII bytes, this
generator's ``flatten()`` method will emit the original bytes.
Parsing a binary message and then flattening it with
``BytesGenerator`` should be idempotent for standards compliant
messages.

Here are the public methods of the ``Generator`` class, imported from
the ``email.generator`` module:

class class email.generator.Generator(outfp, mangle_from_=True, maxheaderlen=78)

   The constructor for the ``Generator`` class takes a *file-like
   object* called *outfp* for an argument.  *outfp* must support the
   ``write()`` method and be usable as the output file for the
   ``print()`` function.

   Optional *mangle_from_* is a flag that, when ``True``, puts a ``>``
   character in front of any line in the body that starts exactly as
   ``From``, i.e. ``From`` followed by a space at the beginning of the
   line.  This is the only guaranteed portable way to avoid having
   such lines be mistaken for a Unix mailbox format envelope header
   separator (see WHY THE CONTENT-LENGTH FORMAT IS BAD for details).
   *mangle_from_* defaults to ``True``, but you might want to set this
   to ``False`` if you are not writing Unix mailbox format files.

   Optional *maxheaderlen* specifies the longest length for a non-
   continued header. When a header line is longer than *maxheaderlen*
   (in characters, with tabs expanded to 8 spaces), the header will be
   split as defined in the ``Header`` class.  Set to zero to disable
   header wrapping. The default is 78, as recommended (but not
   required) by **RFC 2822**.

   The other public ``Generator`` methods are:

   flatten(msg, unixfrom=False, linesep='\n')

      Print the textual representation of the message object structure
      rooted at *msg* to the output file specified when the
      ``Generator`` instance was created.  Subparts are visited depth-
      first and the resulting text will be properly MIME encoded.

      Optional *unixfrom* is a flag that forces the printing of the
      envelope header delimiter before the first **RFC 2822** header
      of the root message object.  If the root object has no envelope
      header, a standard one is crafted.  By default, this is set to
      ``False`` to inhibit the printing of the envelope delimiter.

      Note that for subparts, no envelope header is ever printed.

      Optional *linesep* specifies the line separator character used
      to terminate lines in the output.  It defaults to ``\n`` because
      that is the most useful value for Python application code (other
      library packages expect ``\n`` separated lines).
      ``linesep=\r\n`` can be used to generate output with RFC-
      compliant line separators.

      Messages parsed with a Bytes parser that have a *Content-
      Transfer-Encoding* of 8bit will be converted to a use a 7bit
      Content-Transfer-Encoding.  Non-ASCII bytes in the headers will
      be **RFC 2047** encoded with a charset of *unknown-8bit*.

      Changed in version 3.2: Added support for re-encoding 8bit
      message bodies, and the *linesep* argument.

   clone(fp)

      Return an independent clone of this ``Generator`` instance with
      the exact same options.

   write(s)

      Write the string *s* to the underlying file object, i.e. *outfp*
      passed to ``Generator``'s constructor.  This provides just
      enough file-like API for ``Generator`` instances to be used in
      the ``print()`` function.

As a convenience, see the ``Message`` methods ``as_string()`` and
``str(aMessage)``, a.k.a. ``__str__()``, which simplify the generation
of a formatted string representation of a message object.  For more
detail, see ``email.message``.

class class email.generator.BytesGenerator(outfp, mangle_from_=True, maxheaderlen=78)

   The constructor for the ``BytesGenerator`` class takes a binary
   *file-like object* called *outfp* for an argument.  *outfp* must
   support a ``write()`` method that accepts binary data.

   Optional *mangle_from_* is a flag that, when ``True``, puts a ``>``
   character in front of any line in the body that starts exactly as
   ``From``, i.e. ``From`` followed by a space at the beginning of the
   line.  This is the only guaranteed portable way to avoid having
   such lines be mistaken for a Unix mailbox format envelope header
   separator (see WHY THE CONTENT-LENGTH FORMAT IS BAD for details).
   *mangle_from_* defaults to ``True``, but you might want to set this
   to ``False`` if you are not writing Unix mailbox format files.

   Optional *maxheaderlen* specifies the longest length for a non-
   continued header.  When a header line is longer than *maxheaderlen*
   (in characters, with tabs expanded to 8 spaces), the header will be
   split as defined in the ``Header`` class.  Set to zero to disable
   header wrapping.  The default is 78, as recommended (but not
   required) by **RFC 2822**.

   The other public ``BytesGenerator`` methods are:

   flatten(msg, unixfrom=False, linesep='n')

      Print the textual representation of the message object structure
      rooted at *msg* to the output file specified when the
      ``BytesGenerator`` instance was created.  Subparts are visited
      depth-first and the resulting text will be properly MIME
      encoded.  If the input that created the *msg* contained bytes
      with the high bit set and those bytes have not been modified,
      they will be copied faithfully to the output, even if doing so
      is not strictly RFC compliant.  (To produce strictly RFC
      compliant output, use the ``Generator`` class.)

      Messages parsed with a Bytes parser that have a *Content-
      Transfer-Encoding* of 8bit will be reconstructed as 8bit if they
      have not been modified.

      Optional *unixfrom* is a flag that forces the printing of the
      envelope header delimiter before the first **RFC 2822** header
      of the root message object.  If the root object has no envelope
      header, a standard one is crafted.  By default, this is set to
      ``False`` to inhibit the printing of the envelope delimiter.

      Note that for subparts, no envelope header is ever printed.

      Optional *linesep* specifies the line separator character used
      to terminate lines in the output.  It defaults to ``\n`` because
      that is the most useful value for Python application code (other
      library packages expect ``\n`` separated lines).
      ``linesep=\r\n`` can be used to generate output with RFC-
      compliant line separators.

   clone(fp)

      Return an independent clone of this ``BytesGenerator`` instance
      with the exact same options.

   write(s)

      Write the string *s* to the underlying file object.  *s* is
      encoded using the ``ASCII`` codec and written to the *write*
      method of the  *outfp* *outfp* passed to the
      ``BytesGenerator``'s constructor.  This provides just enough
      file-like API for ``BytesGenerator`` instances to be used in the
      ``print()`` function.

   New in version 3.2.

The ``email.generator`` module also provides a derived class, called
``DecodedGenerator`` which is like the ``Generator`` base class,
except that non-*text* parts are substituted with a format string
representing the part.

class class email.generator.DecodedGenerator(outfp, mangle_from_=True, maxheaderlen=78, fmt=None)

   This class, derived from ``Generator`` walks through all the
   subparts of a message.  If the subpart is of main type *text*, then
   it prints the decoded payload of the subpart. Optional
   *_mangle_from_* and *maxheaderlen* are as with the ``Generator``
   base class.

   If the subpart is not of main type *text*, optional *fmt* is a
   format string that is used instead of the message payload. *fmt* is
   expanded with the following keywords, ``%(keyword)s`` format:

   * ``type`` -- Full MIME type of the non-*text* part

   * ``maintype`` -- Main MIME type of the non-*text* part

   * ``subtype`` -- Sub-MIME type of the non-*text* part

   * ``filename`` -- Filename of the non-*text* part

   * ``description`` -- Description associated with the non-*text*
     part

   * ``encoding`` -- Content transfer encoding of the non-*text* part

   The default value for *fmt* is ``None``, meaning

      [Non-text (%(type)s) part of message omitted, filename %(filename)s]

-[ Footnotes ]-

[1] This statement assumes that you use the appropriate setting for
    the ``unixfrom`` argument, and that you set maxheaderlen=0 (which
    will preserve whatever the input line lengths were).  It is also
    not strictly true, since in many cases runs of whitespace in
    headers are collapsed into single blanks.  The latter is a bug
    that will eventually be fixed.
