CodeProject: Advanced MIME Parser/Creator/Editor. Free source code and programming help

This article provides an advanced MIME editor. You can use it for parsing email messages, changing messages and for creating new email messages. It supports creation of complex messages with nested MIME entities. For more info, see help file: LumiSoft.Net.Mime namespace.

Message examples

Simple message:

Message with attachments:

Here MainEntity is the multipart_mixed entity, and the text and attachment entities are child entities of MainEntity.

Using the code

Parsing example:

Creating a new simple message:

Creating a message with text and attachments:

You must Sign In to use this message board.


Per page

FirstPrevNext

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

Eric Johannsen

21:28 24 Oct '09

I am parsing the raw message content that an email processing program wrote into a database column. The message starts with:

This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --_----------=_125643366138564143 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" MIME-Version: 1.0

When I try to parse using Mime.Parse, I get an InvalidFieldNameException in HeaderField.Name's setter. The value is "--_----------=_125643366138564143 Content-Disposition:".

Is there something wrong with the message I am processing? Am I using the library wrong?

Thanks!

Eric

Re: This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

Ivar Lumi

22:54 24 Oct '09

For right parsing, you should look: http://www.lumisoft.ee/lswww/download/downloads/Examples/[^] MailMessageExamples.zip.
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Re: This is a multi-part message in MIME format. [modified]

Eric Johannsen

10:18 25 Oct '09

After removing everything up to the first thing that looks like a correct header ("Content-Disposition: inline ..."), the email parses without throwing an Exception. However, there are no useful results in the Mime object returned by Mime.Parse.

BodyHtml and BodyText are both null.

MainEntry.Data and MainEntry.DataEncoded contain zero bytes (0x00).

Date is 1/1/0001.

MessageID, MimeVersion, ReplyTo, Sender, Subject, To are all null.

HeaderString contains the entire input message, including encoding like "= ", except that some CR LF have been inserted.

Header.Name = "Content-Disposition:";
Header.Value starts "inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: message/rfc822 >From My SenderName Oct 12...."

Somehow Content-Transfer-Encoding is not being recognized as a new header.

I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong, or something that's happening to the email before it reaches me, but I'm lost as to what. By the way, I'm processing feedback loop messages from Yahoo and AOL... so I guess they create properly formatted emails.

modified on Sunday, October 25, 2009 3:47 PM

Re: This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

Ivar Lumi

5:02 26 Oct '09

Probably you have some problems with CRLF in message. Also i see you use very old version, you should try latest: http://www.lumisoft.ee/lswww/download/downloads
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Mail Server

sibi jacob Abraham

22:22 14 Oct '09

Sir,
I like to implement a mailserver application using .Net with C# as part of my accademic project.I downloaded your mail server source code. But some of the concepts are not clear to me.Please give me a guide line to develop a mail server. i know Its not a simple task.But i can if you are help me. I am going to the end of MCA.I have knowledge in C# & ASP.My mail id is vibince@yahoo.co.in.
I am expecting for your reply.

Thanks in advance......

how to save attachment from mail to disk

ano&gete

3:23 3 Oct '09

dear ivar,

in the first place thankyou for your great sourcecode Thumbs Up

one thing i can't manage is to save the attacchment out of a message.
for example what do i wrong here to get a bytearray: Confused

byte[] emldata = ...

Mail_Message mail = Mail_Message.ParseFromByte(emldata);
MIME_Entity miment = new MIME_Entity();

if (mail.Attachments != null)
{
   for (int j = 0; j < mail.Attachments.Count(); j++)
   {
      MIME_b_Application attachm = new MIME_b_Application(mail.Attachments[j].Body.MediaType);

      byte[] buffer = ???

   }
}

many thanks in advance

2.00/5

Re: how to save attachment from mail to disk

Ivar Lumi

20:53 3 Oct '09

Hi, Tehre are: .Data property Or for large data GetDataStream() method
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Parsing date error

Elvandar

23:26 1 Oct '09

Hi Ivar!

I have a little problem...I was trying to parse an incoming POP3 e-mail:

POP3_ClientMessage PopMessage = Pop.Messages [i];
Mail_Message MailMessage = Mail_Message.ParseFromByte (PopMessage.MessageToByte ());

My problem is that the mail server used doesn't comply to RFC 2822 to format date-time field, it is "Date: 30 Sep 2009 17:46:22" instead of "Date: 30 Sep 2009 17:46:22 +0200", so your parser throws a ParseException...is there a way to avoid parsing of the time zone field? Without recompiling your library and without making a workaround modifying the "Date: " field and adding the field...

By the way, you made a great work with this library, it is very useful!!! Smile

Re: Parsing date error

Ivar Lumi

23:51 1 Oct '09

Hi, I tested, it is parsed, are you shoure that you latest version. Pop3 example app may have older net.dll ... .
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Re: Parsing date error [modified]

Elvandar

0:20 2 Oct '09

I downloaded the DLL from this URL:

http://www.lumisoft.ee/lswww/download/downloads/Net/LumiSoft.Net.zip

so I think this is the latest version.

My problem is that your library parses the "+0200" field (according to RFC 2822), but my mail server doesn't send it, so the date field is incomplete and when I try to parse the message, a ParseException is thrown on the Date field.

Is there a way to set a "no RFC 2822 compliance" flag, so when parsing date the "+0200" field is ignored?

I know this is and odd request, but I wouldn't like to rebuild your library (it works perfectly as is), so if there is another solution, it is welcome!

Thanks again Smile

EDIT:

I think parsing fails here (MIME_Utils.cs):

// We have optional "second".
if(r.Peek(true) == ':'){
r.Char(true);
second = Convert.ToInt32(r.Atom());
}
int timeZoneMinutes = 0;
v = r.Atom(); <<<<<<<<< HERE
// We have RFC 2822 date. For example: +2000.
if(v[0] == '+' || v[0] == '-'){
...

Atom function returns null because after seconds there is "\r\n" instead of "+0200" (or RFC 822 GMT field), so the "v[0] ==" instruction throws a null pointer exception.

modified on Friday, October 2, 2009 5:29 AM

Re: Parsing date error

Ivar Lumi

1:18 2 Oct '09

The new version will be up at next week, i have some IMAP related pending stuff - so can't put current as live. If you need it faster - i can only email newer binary.
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Re: Parsing date error

Elvandar

1:25 2 Oct '09

No thanks, no need to mail me new binaries. I'll wait for the new release! Thanks a lot!!
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

latest version, mime parsing

Member 2743156

0:21 29 Sep '09

hi ivar and thanks for this great library. i looked around but could not find a parsing a mime file examples with the new library. providing some parsing examples will be apreciated. thank you very much. - ilker
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Re: latest version, mime parsing

Ivar Lumi

0:51 29 Sep '09

Hi, All examples: http://www.lumisoft.ee/lswww/download/downloads/Examples/[^]
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Nice job

Steve Trefethen

22:43 3 Sep '09

I had a friend contact me with some MIME email logs he needed parsed and converted to CSV and this worked great so thanks! The only change I made was to change HeaderFieldCollection -> IEnumerable<HeaderField> so I could use LINQ to query the data like this: var ip = from x in m.MainEntity.Header where x.Name.Equals("X-Originating-IP:") select x;
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Re: Nice job

Ivar Lumi

2:21 4 Sep '09

Hi, I see that you use very old version, you should use new version. http://www.lumisoft.ee/lswww/download/downloads/[^]
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

What about an eml inside an eml?

BroxCJ

2:22 11 Aug '09

Im working in an application that cames from an Outlook.MailItem, I receive an email with a eml file attached, and inside that, another eml attached with documents inside. I Tryed to do it recurivelly using the MIME.Parser and Attachmments, but when reading an attachment of type "eml", it seems not all the information is on it. Any Idea? Regards, broxcj
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Re: What about an eml inside an eml?

Ivar Lumi

6:40 11 Aug '09

Latest parses message/rfc822 out of box. In older version yep you needed to call MIME.Parser .
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Re: What about an eml inside an eml?

BroxCJ

23:03 11 Aug '09

Thanks, I found there was another question about this, I updated the code, and worked for me .
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Change from Singlepart to multipart and preserve attachment

Bman28

6:12 16 Jul '09

I have a need to change an email that only has an attachment to one that has an attachment and a plain text body. I have successfully modified the BodyText to allow me to set a value, but it requires it to already have an entity there for it to set.

How would I go about changing a singlepart to multipart and still preserve the attachment? It is requiring me to clear the Data before changing to MultiPart:

MainEntity.Data = null;
MainEntity.ContentType = MediaType_enum.Multipart;

Re: Change from Singlepart to multipart and preserve attachment

Ivar Lumi

8:12 16 Jul '09

First of all single part message can't have attachment and body text. It can be text message or attachment message. SO your message alreay is multipart message.
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Re: Change from Singlepart to multipart and preserve attachment

Bman28

9:25 16 Jul '09

It starts off as a singlepart attachment message, but I need to create a body on the fly.

I think I have something here, I just don't know if I'd screw some other type of message up:

private void CheckMultiPartAndSwitch()
        {
            if (MainEntity.ContentType != MediaType_enum.Multipart && MainEntity.ContentDisposition == ContentDisposition_enum.Attachment)
            {
                //Store Attachment data
                string _sFileName = MainEntity.ContentDisposition_FileName;
                MediaType_enum _ct = MainEntity.ContentType;
                ContentTransferEncoding_enum _enc = MainEntity.ContentTransferEncoding;
                byte[] _data = MainEntity.DataEncoded;

                //Convert to Multipart Message
                MainEntity.Data = null;
                MainEntity.ContentType = MediaType_enum.Multipart_alternative;
                MainEntity.ContentDisposition = ContentDisposition_enum.NotSpecified;
                MainEntity.ContentDescription = "";

                //Add Attachment data back
                MimeEntity _attachEntity = MainEntity.ChildEntities.Add();
                _attachEntity.ContentDisposition = ContentDisposition_enum.Attachment;
                _attachEntity.ContentDisposition_FileName = _sFileName;
                _attachEntity.ContentType = _ct;
                _attachEntity.ContentTransferEncoding = _enc;
                _attachEntity.DataEncoded = _data;
            }
        }

I have added a set to this:

Mime.cs

public string BodyText
        {
            get
            {
                MimeEntity[] entities = this.MimeEntities;
                foreach (MimeEntity entity in entities)
                {
                    if (entity.ContentType == MediaType_enum.Text_plain)
                    {
                        return entity.DataText;
                    }
                }

                return null;
            }
            set
            {
                MimeEntity[] entities = this.MimeEntities;
                foreach (MimeEntity entity in entities)
                {
                    if (entity.ContentType == MediaType_enum.Text_plain)
                    {
                        entity.DataText = value;
                        return;
                    }
                }
                CheckMultiPartAndSwitch();
                //Add Body Data
                MimeEntity textEntity = MainEntity.ChildEntities.Add();
                textEntity.ContentType = MediaType_enum.Text_plain;
                textEntity.ContentTransferEncoding = ContentTransferEncoding_enum.QuotedPrintable;
                textEntity.DataText = value;
            }
        }

Re: Change from Singlepart to multipart and preserve attachment

Ivar Lumi

21:29 16 Jul '09

First i see you use very old version. Get new one: http://www.lumisoft.ee/lswww/download/downloads Also there is example(mail message examples .zip) http://www.lumisoft.ee/lswww/download/downloads/examples[^]
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Could you please write a simple sample code that reads a eml file and load it on a MailMessage class of .net framework?

evald80

0:46 22 Jun '09

Hello! as subject: Could you please write a simple sample code that reads a eml file and load it on a MailMessage class of .net framework? thank you.
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Re: Could you please write a simple sample code that reads a eml file and load it on a MailMessage class of .net framework?

Ivar Lumi

4:34 22 Jun '09

Hi, http://www.lumisoft.ee/lswww/download/downloads/Examples/[^]
Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Last Visit: 23:58 22 Nov '09 Last Update: 23:58 22 Nov '09

12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next »

Introduction

Message examples

Simple message:

Message with attachments:

Using the code

Parsing example:

Creating a new simple message:

Creating a message with text and attachments: