Re: potential bug in UnixMailbox method of Python

**Steve Holden** · Nov 13 '08, 03:35 PM

Sirshendu Rakshit wrote:

Hi,
>
I am using UnixMailbox to parse an mbox file. This mbox file starts with
the following lines.
>
From qtopic+errors@q uicktopic.com Tue May 18 01:43:12 2004

>>From qtopic+errors@q uicktopic.com Tue May 18 01:43:12 2004

....
...
>
Now what I am seeing is that the '>From qtopic+errors@q uicktopic.com
Tue May 18 01:43:12 2004' line is being returned as mail header by
UnixMailbox.
Which is not the case. I am not sure whether this is a bug in
UnixMailbox. Or is it not handled in Active Python 2.3.5.
>
The http://www.qmail.org/man/man5/mbox.html
link says that while reading a mbox the >From_line should be stripped off.
>
Please help me out.

I believe the difference between UnixMailbox and other types is that the
UnixMailbox is specifically designed to identify the gaps between
messages by the blank line and the "From ....". While this isn't
technically RFC 2822 format, it's useful to have the header. If you
don't want it you can always throw it away ...

regards
Steve
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Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/