blob: c0e01eb41a0db6c18c78c113d8ba0abd00535021 [file] [log] [blame]
Fred Drakec6161732002-10-01 14:38:47 +00001\documentclass{howto}
2
3\title{email Package Reference}
4\author{Barry Warsaw}
5\authoraddress{\email{barry@zope.com}}
6
7\date{\today}
8\release{2.4} % software release, not documentation
9\setreleaseinfo{} % empty for final release
10\setshortversion{2.4} % major.minor only for software
11
12\begin{document}
13
14\maketitle
15
16\begin{abstract}
Barry Warsawde6977f2002-10-01 15:13:29 +000017 The \module{email} package provides classes and utilities to create,
18 parse, generate, and modify email messages, conforming to all the
19 relevant email and MIME related RFCs.
Fred Drakec6161732002-10-01 14:38:47 +000020\end{abstract}
21
22% The ugly "%begin{latexonly}" pseudo-environment supresses the table
23% of contents for HTML generation.
24%
25%begin{latexonly}
26\tableofcontents
27%end{latexonly}
28
Barry Warsawde6977f2002-10-01 15:13:29 +000029\section{Introduction}
30The \module{email} package provides classes and utilities to create,
31parse, generate, and modify email messages, conforming to all the
32relevant email and MIME related RFCs.
33
34This document describes the current version of the \module{email}
35package, which is available to Python programmers in a number of ways.
36Python 2.2.2 and 2.3 come with \module{email} version 2, while earlier
37versions of Python 2.2.x come with \module{email} version 1. Python
382.1.x and earlier do not come with any version of the \module{email}
39package.
40
41The \module{email} package is also available as a standalone distutils
42package, and is compatible with Python 2.1.3 and beyond. Thus, if
43you're using Python 2.1.3 you can download the standalone package and
44install it in your \file{site-packages} directory. The standalone
45\module{email} package is available on the
46\ulink{SourceForge \module{mimelib} project}{http://mimelib.sf.net}.
47
48The documentation that follows was written for the Python project, so
49if you're reading this as part of the standalone \module{email}
50package documentation, there are a few notes to be aware of:
51
52\begin{itemize}
53\item Deprecation and ``version added'' notes are relative to the
54 Python version a feature was added or deprecated. To find out
55 what version of the \module{email} package a particular item was
56 added, changed, or removed, refer to the package's
57 \ulink{\file{NEWS} file}{http://cvs.sf.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/mimelib/mimelib/NEWS?rev=1.36&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup}.
58
59\item The code samples are written with Python 2.2 in mind. For
60 Python 2.1.3, some adjustments are necessary. For example, this
61 code snippet;
62
63 \begin{verbatim}
64 if isinstance(s, str):
65 # ...
66 \end{verbatim}
67
68 would need to be written this way in Python 2.1.3:
69
70 \begin{verbatim}
71 from types import StringType
72 # ...
73 if isinstance(s, StringType):
74 # ...
75 \end{verbatim}
76
77\item If you're reading this documentation as part of the
78 standalone \module{email} package, some of the internal links to
79 other sections of the Python standard library may not resolve.
80
81\end{itemize}
82
Fred Drakec6161732002-10-01 14:38:47 +000083\input{email}
84
85\end{document}