Python Programming On Win32

Sending an SMTP Message

To begin, we’ll use Python to send a simple message using the SMTP protocol. Our message will contain the minimum number of message headers, a plain ASCII message body, and no attachments.

To assist in this task, we’ll use the Python module smtplib . This module contains a single class, SMTP , that manages the connection with the SMTP server and provides useful methods for interacting with the server.

Sending a simple message using SMTP is so simple it’s not worth writing a sample source file for this purpose; you can do it at the interactive window. The SMTP class provides the following method:

bad_addresses = sendmail( from, to, message )

from

A string with the address of the sender.

to

A list of strings, one for each recipient.

message

A message as a string formatted as specified in the various RFCs.

So all you need is the message itself, a list of recipients, and your own email address.

As per RFC-822, the format of the message is simple. It consists of a list of message headers, followed by a blank line, followed by the message body. For this demonstration, you can set up a message with the following code:

>>> msg="Subject: Hi from Python\n\nHello."

Define the subject of the message as “Hi from Python” and the body as “Hello.”

Next, define a variable with your email address and SMTP host:

>>> address="[e-mail]"
>>> host="mail-hub"

And send the message to yourself:

>>> import smtplib >>> s=smtplib.SMTP(host) >>> s.sendmail(address, [address], ...