newbie - POPLIB, MIMETOOLS and SMTPLIB - aaarrrghh!

[Andrew]

Hi there

sorry for being such a newbie.

In summary, I am trying to write a script which reads a POP mailbox,
extracts the "subject" line from each message, and emails a message back to
the sender, echoing the "subject" line.  Weird problems everywhere!

I can get POPLIB to read emails, but I can't get MIMETOOLS to read the
emails - so there's no way for me to get the subject line out.
I can get SMTPLIB to send emails, but I can;t work out how to include a
subject line in the email.

I've looked for days throughout the Internet for solutions to these
seemingly simple problems but I can't find anything.

Why would it be so hard for MIMETOOLS to read messages that come from
POPLIB?  Surely they are designed to work together?

Why so hard to include a subject line using SMTPLIB?

Any help that can be offered by anyone is deeply appreciated.  I feel like a
total goof.  What am I missing about this?

Thanks in advance

Andrew Stuart
astuart at mira.net