# Extract data from email - Tmail, Hpricot **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [September 4, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/extract-data-from-email-tmail-hpricot/147719 "2008-09-04T17:03:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![geo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/f4b2a3/32.png) [@geo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/geo)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/extract-data-from-email-tmail-hpricot/147719/1 "2008-09-04T17:03:09Z")
Hi all, I have an html email that I would like to parse. The problem I’m having is removing all html tags and getting past the header information. Then I want to extract all the information per row to put into a database. the email is pasted here: [http://pastie.textmate.org/265259](http://pastie.textmate.org/265259) I have tried Tmail, but can’t seem to extract just the body. Then I tried Hpricot and wasn’t sure what to use before the .inner\_html. So basically I’m very lost on where to start. Any help is appreciated. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![geo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/f4b2a3/32.png) [@geo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/geo)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 8:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/extract-data-from-email-tmail-hpricot/147719/2 "2008-09-04T20:42:28Z")
George Cooper wrote: > I have tried Tmail, but can’t seem to extract just the body. Then I > tried Hpricot and wasn’t sure what to use before the .inner\_html. So > basically I’m very lost on where to start. > > Any help is appreciated. > > Thanks! It would help if you posted some code that didn’t work, so people can have a better idea of what you’re trying to do. Tmail should have been able to parse that without problem, however, extracting the body is easy. The box follows the empty line. You could use something like split, but duping such huge strings could be slow. When you read the mail, try to read a line at a time until you get the empty line, then read the rest into a buffer for hpricot. ---
**Author:** ![geo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/f4b2a3/32.png) [@geo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/geo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2008, 5:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/extract-data-from-email-tmail-hpricot/147719/3 "2008-09-08T17:38:06Z")
Michael M. wrote: > George Cooper wrote: > > > I have tried Tmail, but can’t seem to extract just the body. Then I > > tried Hpricot and wasn’t sure what to use before the .inner\_html. So > > basically I’m very lost on where to start. > > > > Any help is appreciated. > > > > Thanks! > > It would help if you posted some code that didn’t work, so people can > have a better idea of what you’re trying to do. Tmail should have been > able to parse that without problem, however, extracting the body is > easy. The box follows the empty line. You could use something like > split, but duping such huge strings could be slow. When you read the > mail, try to read a line at a time until you get the empty line, then > read the rest into a buffer for hpricot. Below is the code I am using to try and get the body out of the html email (copy of email [http://pastie.org/265259](http://pastie.org/265259)) . require ‘rubygems’ require ‘tmail’ email = TMail::Mail.load( ‘emailhtml.eml’ ) puts email[‘body’] # comes back nil puts email[‘from’] puts email[‘Delivered-To’] puts email[‘to’] # comes back nil puts email[‘subject’] puts email[‘date’] puts email[‘X-Originalarrivaltime’] results: nil removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid nil [Freddy] New Incidents captured on 2008-09-02 Tue, 2 Sep 2008 19:05:00 -0400 02 Sep 2008 23:10:35.0578 (UTC) FILETIME=[1B2659A0:01C90D51] ---
**Author:** ![geo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/f4b2a3/32.png) [@geo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/geo)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 1:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/extract-data-from-email-tmail-hpricot/147719/4 "2008-09-09T01:00:24Z")
On Sep 8, 11:31 am, Geo \_C [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > It would help if you posted some code that didn’t work, so people can > > require ‘rubygems’ > > require ‘tmail’ > > email = TMail::Mail.load( ‘emailhtml.eml’ ) > > puts email[‘body’] # comes back nil Don’t see why it would be nil. I would contact Mikel. [http://lindsaar.net/](http://lindsaar.net/) > puts email[‘from’] > puts email[‘Delivered-To’] > puts email[‘to’] # comes back nil I don’t see a ‘to’ in the header, so is this a surprise? > Tue, 2 Sep 2008 19:05:00 -0400 > 02 Sep 2008 23:10:35.0578 (UTC) FILETIME=[1B2659A0:01C90D51] T. ---
**Author:** ![geo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/f4b2a3/32.png) [@geo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/geo)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/extract-data-from-email-tmail-hpricot/147719/5 "2008-09-11T18:36:07Z")
I got Tmail to extract the body of my email. The solution (very simple and embarrassing) is below. Now I’m trying to figure out Hpricot, but examples seem to be fairly thin. If anyone knows of a good tutorial for beginners, please post. I have been using [http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/doc/hpricot/](http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/doc/hpricot/) , but could use something more basic. Thanks for the help! Thomas S. wrote: > On Sep 8, 11:31�am, Geo \_C [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > > It would help if you posted some code that didn’t work, so people can > > > require ‘rubygems’ > > > require ‘tmail’ > > > > email = TMail::Mail.load( ‘emailhtml.eml’ ) > > > > puts email[‘body’] # comes back nil > > Don’t see why it would be nil. I would contact Mikel. I needed to use email.body instead of email[‘body’] to return the body. thanks Peter! > [http://lindsaar.net/](http://lindsaar.net/) > > > puts email[‘from’] > > puts email[‘Delivered-To’] > > puts email[‘to’] # comes back nil > > I don’t see a ‘to’ in the header, so is this a surprise? My mistake there. You are correct, there is no ‘to’ for me to use. > > Tue, 2 Sep 2008 19:05:00 -0400 > > 02 Sep 2008 23:10:35.0578 (UTC) FILETIME=[1B2659A0:01C90D51] > > T.