Python Mailer Script

Question

I have a weird problem with a very simple python email script. The script by itself works fine, however when I use the script inside my existing code (inside an if statement) it seems to put the FROM,TO,SUBJECT AND TEXT fields inside the body of the email (not just the TEXT field)

The script

import smtplib
SERVER = "localhost"
FROM = "[email protected]"
TO = ["[email protected]"] # must be a list
SUBJECT = "Test"
TEXT = "This message was sent with Python's smtplib."

message = """\
From: %s
To: %s
Subject: %s

%s
""" % (FROM, ", ".join(TO), SUBJECT, TEXT)

server = smtplib.SMTP(SERVER)
server.sendmail(FROM, TO, message)
server.quit()

When I wrap it around an If statement, it goes haywire and puts everything into the email body.

if X == 1:
    import smtplib
    SERVER = "localhost"
    FROM = "[email protected]"
    TO = ["[email protected]"] # must be a list
    SUBJECT = "Test"
    TEXT = "This message was sent with Python's smtplib."

    message = """\
    From: %s
    To: %s
    Subject: %s

    %s
    """ % (FROM, ", ".join(TO), SUBJECT, TEXT)

    server = smtplib.SMTP(SERVER)
    server.sendmail(FROM, TO, message)
    server.quit()
else:
    continue

This will give me an email like below

From - [email protected]
Subject -
To - undisclosed-recipients

    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    Subject: Hello!

    This message was sent with Python's smtplib.

As mentioned, If I remove the code from the If statement, it comes through fine, complete with the correct subject line and the correct body. Perhaps I am missing something obvious?

Any help would be appreciate. Thank you my friends.

Have a look at the email module for creating e-mails with various content types: http://docs.python.org/2/library/email-examples.html (see also my answer here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/14139800/1025391) — moooeeeep, May 30 '13 at 06:54

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 07 '21 at 05:59

    message = """\
    From: %s
    To: %s
    Subject: %s

    %s
    """ % (FROM, ", ".join(TO), SUBJECT, TEXT)

This message has spaces before the keywords From, To, Subject, etc. So these keywords are not recognized as header field names. So it all becomes part of the message body.

To fix this, dedent the text:

    message = """\
From: %s
To: %s
Subject: %s

%s
""" % (FROM, ", ".join(TO), SUBJECT, TEXT)

Or, to preserve the readability of the indentation,

import textwrap
if X == 1:
    message = textwrap.dedent("""\
        From: %s
        To: %s
        Subject: %s
    
        %s
        """ % (FROM, ", ".join(TO), SUBJECT, TEXT))

And boom, there it is. I knew it was something simple like that, dam looked everywhere on the net too. Unutbu, I thank you for your assistance =) — dlyxzen, May 30 '13 at 06:58

Python Mailer Script

1 Answers1