[Tutor] sending email via SMTP: code review requested

[Japhy Bartlett]

The "from" quirk is because it gets parsed as a header, I think.

Sending is pretty simple, you should be OK.  It may be worth setting up an
outgoing-only mail server like postfix that only listens in localhost,
gmail can be fussy about quotas.

On Sunday, May 4, 2014, Brian van den Broek <brian.van.den.broek at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I am playing with the smtp and email modules from the standard library
> of Python 2.7.3 (I also want it to run on 2.6.6). I've not found the
> going easy; the SMTP and RFC 2822 standards are not ones I have worked
> with before. I have something that works, but I am not confident I am
> doing the right thing. For that matter, I am not very confident that I
> am not doing the wrong thing.
>
> I would very much appreciate some more experienced eyes on the code below.
> In addition to any outright errors concerning interaction with an SMTP
> server and constructing a MIME message, I would of course also welcome
> style comments. (Preemptively, I will note it isn't obvious I ought to
> have gone OOP with this.)
>
> I should also mention that I am writing this code as part of some
> tools to send myself and others reminder emails, the tools to be run
> from a cron job. I am storing an actual email account password in
> plaintext in my code. But, the account in question is one established
> just for the purpose of the reminder project and similar projects; it
> is not an account which houses my plans for world domination or the
> like. That said, I have removed the account name and password string
> below; it will thus require some adjustments to run for testing.
>
> And, as I side note, could anyone explain why changing a first world
> of a body line 'From' to '>From' is the preferred standard? I
> understand what the problem is that is being solved, but as most email
> clients interpret a leading '>' as an indication of quoting, I would
> have thought ' From' or something like '-From' would have been better.
> If I have my own code deal with the problem in one of these ways, will
> I be breaking anything?
>
> Anyway, thanks and best,
>
> Brian vdB
>
> import smtplib
>
> class SMTPSender(object):
>     def __init__(self, server, port, sender, password, messages):
>         self.server = server
>         self.port = port
>         self.sender = sender
>         self.password = password
>         self.messages = messages
>
>         self._connect()
>         try:
>             self._send()
>         finally:
>             self._logout()
>
>     def _connect(self):
>         self.session = smtplib.SMTP(server, port)
>         self.session.ehlo()
>         self.session.starttls()
>         self.session.ehlo
>         self.session.login(sender, password)
>
>     def _send(self):
>         for message in self.messages:
>             to_addresses = message["To"].split(",")
>             self.session.sendmail(sender, to_addresses,
> message.as_string())
>
>     def _logout(self):
>         self.session.quit()
>
> if __name__ == "__main__":
>     server = "smtp.gmail.com"
>     port = 587
>     sender = "myfunnyhandle at gmail.com <javascript:;>"
>     password = "mysecret"
>
>     from email.mime.text import MIMEText
>     from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
>
>     # Quick and dirty test message
>     msg = MIMEMultipart("alternative")
>     msg["Subject"] = "SMTP Test MIMEText plain"
>     msg["From"] = sender # Setting to anything but sender gets removed by
> gmail.
>     msg["To"] = "someone at example.com <javascript:;>,
> someoneelse at example.com <javascript:;>"
>     msg["Reply-to"] = "answerhere at example.com <javascript:;>"
>     body = "\n\n".join(["Test msg MIME Text",
>        "From is a problem when occuring as the first word of a line."])
>     msg.attach(MIMEText(body, "plain"))
>
>     sender = SMTPSender(server, port, sender, password, [msg,])
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