python html mail failure

Question

I'm struggling to figure out what went wrong with the below code. I'm trying to send html mail.

NOW = datetime.datetime.now()

 def sendEmail(msg):
    global NOW
    global SENDER
    global EMAILTARGET
    today = "%s/%s/%s" % (NOW.month,NOW.day,NOW.year)
    # Create message container - the correct MIME type is multipart/alternative.
    msg = MIMEMultipart('alternative')
    msg['Subject'] = "SAR Data Report - %s" % today
    msg['From'] = SENDER
    msg['To'] = EMAILTARGET
    chunk = MIMEText(msg, 'html')
    msg.attach(chunk)
    s = smtplib.SMTP('localhost')
    s.sendmail(SENDER, EMAILTARGET, msg.as_string())
    s.quit()

the above code gives me the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "./html_mail.py", line 295, in <module>
 sendEmail(html)
 File "./html_mail.py", line 245, in sendEmail
 chunk = MIMEText(msg, 'html')
 File "/usr/lib/python2.7/email/mime/text.py", line 30, in __init__
  self.set_payload(_text, _charset)
 File "/usr/lib/python2.7/email/message.py", line 226, in set_payload
  self.set_charset(charset)
 File "/usr/lib/python2.7/email/message.py", line 268, in set_charset
  cte(self)
 File "/usr/lib/python2.7/email/encoders.py", line 73, in encode_7or8bit
  orig.encode('ascii')
  AttributeError: MIMEMultipart instance has no attribute 'encode'

Timothy E. Johansson · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-20 23:50:59Z

4

The error in your code is that you've used msg as an in-parameter to your function and it collides with your MIME message container (both named msg).

What you need to do is to change the name of the in-parameter to something else, like html:

def sendEmail(html):
...
chunk = MIMEText(html, 'html')
...

edited Sep 20, 2012 at 23:50

answered Sep 20, 2012 at 23:34

Timothy E. Johansson

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1 Comment

Timothy E. Johansson Over a year ago

If you want to avoid all the hassles with SMTP I would recommend an email delivery service like AlphaMail or SendGrid.

kindall · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-20 23:26:47Z

0

You're passing msg, which is a MIMEMultipart object, to the MIMEText initializer, which expects a string. You should be passing a string containing the HTML you want to attach, not the message you're trying to attach it to.

edited Sep 20, 2012 at 23:26

answered Sep 20, 2012 at 23:20

kindall

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