Return to the Table of Contents
This is a directory of program listings from Chapter 15 of the book:
- Foundations of Python Network Programming
-
Third Edition, October 2014
by Brandon Rhodes and John Goerzen
You can learn more about the book by visiting the root of this GitHub source code repository.
These scripts were written for Python 3, but can also run successfully under Python 2. Simply use 3to2 to convert them to the older syntax.
The scripts in this chapter are best exercised inside the network
Playground where mail.example.com is
already set up and configured for POP. Once the playground is running,
ask for a prompt on the h1 host and visit this chapter’s directory:
$ ./play.sh h1
# cd py3/chapter14
The scripts will all need the password of the brandon user, which is
abc123 and in the following examples will be piped in with the echo
command. One lone script, open_maplib.py, uses the Standard Library
imaplib module:
$ echo abc123 | python3 open_imaplib.py mail.example.com brandon
Capabilities: ('IMAP4REV1', 'LITERAL+', 'SASL-IR', 'LOGIN-REFERRALS',
'ID', 'ENABLE', 'IDLE', 'AUTH=PLAIN')
Listing mailboxes
Status: 'OK'
Data:
b'(\\HasNoChildren) "/" INBOX'
All of the other scripts, for technical issues explained in the chapter,
use the third party imapclient module by Menno Smits. It is both
capable of negotiating additional capabilities with the server, and also
parses the list of mailboxes on its own.
$ echo abc123 | python3 open_imap.py mail.example.com brandon
Capabilities: ('IMAP4REV1', 'LITERAL+', 'SASL-IR', 'LOGIN-REFERRALS',
'ID', 'ENABLE', 'IDLE', 'SORT', 'SORT=DISPLAY', 'THREAD=REFERENCES',
'THREAD=REFS', 'THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT', 'MULTIAPPEND', 'URL-PARTIAL',
'CATENATE', 'UNSELECT', 'CHILDREN', 'NAMESPACE', 'UIDPLUS',
'LIST-EXTENDED', 'I18NLEVEL=1', 'CONDSTORE', 'QRESYNC', 'ESEARCH',
'ESORT', 'SEARCHRES', 'WITHIN', 'CONTEXT=SEARCH', 'LIST-STATUS',
'SPECIAL-USE', 'BINARY', 'MOVE')
Listing mailboxes:
\HasNoChildren / INBOX
Two further scripts show how to pull basic information about a folder, and how to provide a full summary of the messages inside.
$ echo abc123 | python3 folder_info.py mail.example.com brandon INBOX
EXISTS: 3
FLAGS: ('\\Answered', '\\Flagged', '\\Deleted', '\\Seen', '\\Draft')
NOMODSEQ: ['']
PERMANENTFLAGS: ()
READ-ONLY: ['']
RECENT: 0
UIDNEXT: 11
UIDVALIDITY: 1414010141
UNSEEN: ['1']
$ echo abc123 | python3 folder_summary.py mail.example.com brandon INBOX
1 Administrator <[email protected]>
We are happy that you have chosen to use example.com's indus ...
2 Administrator <[email protected]>
Administrator e-mails are sent as plain ASCII without MIME o ...
3 Test Sender <[email protected]>
Parts: multipart/alternative text/plain
The final script, simple_client.py, is quite elaborate (despite its
name) and allows the user to interactively visit folders and the
messages inside.