classification
Title: email package and Unicode strings handling
Type: behavior Stage: test needed
Components: Library (Lib) Versions: Python 2.6
process
Status: open Resolution:
Dependencies: Superseder:
Assigned To: barry Nosy List: ajaksu2, barry, bgamari, manlioperillo (4)
Priority: normal Keywords

Created on 2006-09-10 16:04 by manlioperillo, last changed 2009-05-01 16:00 by bgamari.

Messages (3)
msg29793 - (view) Author: Manlio Perillo (manlioperillo) Date: 2006-09-10 16:04
The support for Unicode strings in the email package
(notably MIMEText and Header class) is not uniform.

The behaviour with Unicode strings in Header is
documented but the interface is not good.

This code works, but it should not:

>>> h = Header.Header(u"àèìòù", charset="us-ascii")
>>> m = Message.Message()
>>> m["Subject"] = h
>>> print m.as_string()


Allowing this to work can cause confusion, I'm saying
that the charset is us-ascii, not utf-8.

With MIMEText I obtain:

m = MIMEText.MIMEText(u"àèìòù", _charset="us-ascii")
>>> print m.as_string()

[ exception ]


I think that the correct behaviour (for all functions
accepting strings) is:

- Do not accept plain str strings (8-bit).
  Accept only if they are plain ascii (7-bit).
- The charset specified should not be considered an 
  hint, but the charset I want to be used.



Regards  Manlio Perillo
msg29794 - (view) Author: Manlio Perillo (manlioperillo) Date: 2006-09-10 17:35
Logged In: YES 
user_id=1054957

The last example is not right.
Here is the correct one:

 >>> m = MIMEText.MIMEText(u"àèìòù", _charset="utf-8")
 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  File "C:\Python2.4\lib\email\MIMEText.py", line 28, in
__init__
    self.set_payload(_text, _charset)
  File "C:\Python2.4\lib\email\Message.py", line 218, in
set_payload
    self.set_charset(charset)
  File "C:\Python2.4\lib\email\Message.py", line 260, in
set_charset
    self._payload = charset.body_encode(self._payload)
  File "C:\Python2.4\lib\email\Charset.py", line 366, in
body_encode
    return email.base64MIME.body_encode(s)
  File "C:\Python2.4\lib\email\base64MIME.py", line 136, in
encode
    enc = b2a_base64(s[i:i + max_unencoded])
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode characters in
position 0-2: ordinal not in range(128)


So it seems that email.Message does not handle Unicode strings.

The code works if I set the charset to latin-1.
msg84471 - (view) Author: Daniel Diniz (ajaksu2) Date: 2009-03-30 03:08
Confirmed on trunk.
History
Date User Action Args
2009-05-01 16:00:24bgamarisetnosy: + bgamari
2009-03-30 22:56:23ajaksu2linkissue1685453 dependencies
2009-03-30 03:08:15ajaksu2setversions: + Python 2.6
nosy: + ajaksu2

messages: + msg84471

type: behavior
stage: test needed
2006-09-10 16:04:26manlioperillocreate