[Python-Dev] Patch making the current email package (mostly) support bytes

[R. David Murray]

On Sat, 09 Oct 2010 01:06:29 +0900, "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:
> That mess is entirely unnecessary in Python 3.  Text and wire format
> can be easily distinguished with three different representations of
> email: Unicode for the conceptual RFC 822 layer (of course this is an
> extension, because RFC 822 itself is strictly limited to the ASCII
> subset), bytes for wire format, and Message objects for modern
> structured mail (including MIME, etc).
> 
> *If* email6 is reengineered with that kind of structure, then you
> should be able to dispense with almost all of the raft of defense,
> because the email module will give you well-behaved Message objects,
> whose text components (including the header) are well-behaved
> character strings that mix seamlessly with other character strings.

That engineering is pretty much what we are looking at, although in
practice I think you have to hang wire-format and text-format bits off
of appropriate places in the model in order to keep everything properly
coordinated.

> Maybe even in email5 ....

I suspect that's pushing it.  Patches happily accepted, though :)

--
R. David Murray                                      www.bitdance.com