flanker-next 0.9.14
Mailgun Parsing Tools
License: Apache 2

Flanker - email address and MIME parsing for Python
===================================================

.. image:: https://travis-ci.org/mailgun/flanker.svg?branch=master
    :target: https://travis-ci.org/mailgun/flanker

.. image:: https://coveralls.io/repos/github/mailgun/flanker/badge.svg?branch=master
    :target: https://coveralls.io/github/mailgun/flanker?branch=master

Flanker is an open source parsing library written in Python by the Mailgun Team.
Flanker currently consists of an address parsing library (`flanker.addresslib`) as
well as a MIME parsing library (`flanker.mime`).

Detailed documentation is provided in the `User Manual <https://github.com/mailgun/flanker/blob/master/docs/User%20Manual.md>`_ as well as the
`API Reference <https://github.com/mailgun/flanker/blob/master/docs/API%20Reference.md>`_. A Quickstart Guide is provided below.

Python Versions
---------------

Flanker is heavily used by `Mailgun <www.mailgun.com>`_ in production with
Python 2.7. The current production version is v0.8.5.

Support for Python 3 was added in v0.9.0 by popular demand from the community.
We are not using Flanker with Python 3 in the house. All we know is that tests
pass with Python 3.6, so use at your own risk. Feel free to report Python 3
specific issues if you see any.

Installing
----------

You can install flanker via `pip` or clone the repo from GitHub.

You'll need Python headers files before you start working with flanker, so install them first:

.. code-block:: bash

   # ubuntu 
   sudo apt-get install python-dev
   # fedora 
   sudo yum install python-devel

If you are using `pip`, simply type:

.. code-block:: bash

   pip install flanker

If you are cloning from GitHub, you can type:

.. code-block:: bash

   git clone git@github.com:mailgun/flanker.git
   cd flanker
   pip install -e .

Address Parsing
---------------

To parse a single mailbox (display name as well as email address):

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker.addresslib import address
   >>>
   >>> address.parse('Foo foo@example.com')
   Foo <foo@example.com>

An invalid address is returned as `None`:

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker.addresslib import address
   >>>
   >>> print address.parse('@example.com')
   None

To parse a single email address (no display name):

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker.addresslib import address
   >>>
   >>> address.parse('foo@example.com', addr_spec_only=True)
   foo@example.com

To parse an address list:

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker.addresslib import address
   >>>
   >>> address.parse_list(['foo@example.com, bar@example.com, @example.com'])
   [foo@example.com, bar@example.com]

To parse an address list as well as return a tuple containing the parsed 
addresses and the unparsable portions

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker.addresslib import address
   >>>
   >>> address.parse_list(['foo@example.com, bar@example.com, @example.com'], as_tuple=True)
   [foo@example.com, bar@example.com], ['@example.com']

To parse an address list in strict mode:

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker.addresslib import address
   >>>
   >>> address.parse_list(['foo@example.com, bar@example.com, @example.com'], strict=True)
   [foo@example.com, bar@example.com]

To validate an email address (parse as well as DNS, MX existence, and ESP grammar checks):

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker.addresslib import address
   >>>
   >>> address.validate_address('foo@mailgun.com')
   foo@mailgun.com

To validate an address list:

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker.addresslib import address
   >>>
   >>> address.validate_list(['foo@mailgun.com, bar@mailgun.com, @mailgun.com'], as_tuple=True)
   ([foo@mailgun.com, bar@mailgun.com], ['@mailgun.com'])

MIME Parsing
------------

For the following examples, `message_string` will be set to the following MIME message:

::

   MIME-Version: 1.0
   Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a11c1d71697c7f004e6856996
   From: Bob <bob@example.com>
   To: Alice <alice@example.com>
   Subject: hello, world
   Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 12:43:03 -0700
   
   --001a11c1d71697c7f004e6856996
   Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
   
   Hello, *Alice*
   
   --001a11c1d71697c7f004e6856996
   Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
   
   <p>Hello, <b>Alice</b></p>
   
   --001a11c1d71697c7f004e6856996--
   
To parse a MIME message:

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker import mime
   >>>
   >>> msg = mime.from_string(message_string)

MIME message headers (unicode multi-value dictionary with headers):

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker import mime
   >>>
   >>> msg = mime.from_string(message_string)
   >>> msg.headers.items()
   [('Mime-Version', '1.0'),
    ('Content-Type',
     ('multipart/alternative', {'boundary': u'001a11c1d71697c7f004e6856996'})),
    ('From', 'Bob <bob@example.com>'),
    ('To', 'Alice <alice@example.com>'),
    ('Subject', 'hello, world'),
    ('Date', 'Mon, 16 Sep 2013 12:43:03 -0700')]

Useful content_type member with predicates:

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker import mime
   >>> msg = mime.from_string(message_string)
   >>>
   >>> msg.content_type.is_multipart()
   True
   >>>
   >>> msg.content_type.is_singlepart()
   False
   >>>
   >>> msg.content_type.is_message_container()
   False 

Decoded body of a message:

.. code-block:: py

   >>> from flanker import mime
   >>> msg = mime.from_string(message_string)
   >>>
   >>> # None because message is multipart
   >>> print msg.body
   None
   >>>
   >>> for part in msg.parts:
          print 'Content-Type: {} Body: {}'.format(part, part.body)

   Content-Type: (text/plain) Body: Hello, *Alice*
   Content-Type: (text/html) Body: <p>Hello, <b>Alice</b></p>

   >>> # None because no enclosed messages exist
   >>> print msg.enclosed
   None