# Wrong content-type when trying to parse emails with Net::IMA **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [September 29, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wrong-content-type-when-trying-to-parse-emails-with-net-ima/70486 "2006-09-29T17:08:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bigdaddy71)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wrong-content-type-when-trying-to-parse-emails-with-net-ima/70486/1 "2006-09-29T17:08:50Z")
i’m trying to parse an email that is supposed to be a multipart/mixed mail but i am not getting back the expected results. data = imap.fetch(7, [“ENVELOPE”, “RFC822.HEADER”, “BODYSTRUCTURE”, “BODY[1]”]) [RFC822.HEADER] …[some headers removed to protect the innocent]… From: [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:03:07 -05:00 Content-type: Multipart/Mixed; boundary=Message-Boundary-22611 X-finfo: DOS,“FOOBAR.ZIP”, Subject: foobar inc. in stock inventory Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.50 Message-ID: [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) [BODYSTRUCTURE] #\“US-ASCII”}, content\_id=nil, description=nil, encoding=“7BIT”, size=218060, lines=2959, md5=nil, disposition=nil, language=nil, extension=nil\> [BODY[1] –Message-Boundary-22611 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-description: blah blah blah blah blah blah –Message-Boundary-22611 Content-Type: Application/Octet-stream; name=FOOBAR.ZIP Content-transfer-encoding: BASE64 …[base64 encoded data]… –Message-Boundary-22611– as you can see above, the content-type is clearly multipart/mixed, but yet, when i dump the bodystructure, i get text/plain. the size and lines corresponds to the size/lines of the body of the email. anyone got any ideas on this one? Chris ---
**Author:** ![bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bigdaddy71)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2006, 10:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wrong-content-type-when-trying-to-parse-emails-with-net-ima/70486/2 "2006-09-29T22:45:42Z")
Chris H. wrote: > i’m trying to parse an email that is supposed to be a multipart/mixed > mail but i am not getting back the expected results. What did you expect? / … > as you can see above, the content-type is clearly multipart/mixed, but > yet, when i dump the bodystructure, i get text/plain. the size and > lines corresponds to the size/lines of the body of the email. > > anyone got any ideas on this one? Sure. In e-mails everything is plain text – it has to be, in order to be acceptable to the protocol. Therefore the content encoding is set up to consist entirely of ASCII characters. It is up to the receiving software to convert this plain-text form into graphics or whatever the content actually represents. ---
**Author:** ![bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bigdaddy71)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 1:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wrong-content-type-when-trying-to-parse-emails-with-net-ima/70486/3 "2006-09-30T01:06:46Z")
On 29-Sep-06, at 4:45 PM, Paul L. wrote: > What paul means is that the Net::IMAP just returns the text, and you’ll have to parse the MIME attachments from the text that is in the body Just out of curiosity, is there a lib in ruby to do this? > – > Paul L. > [http://www.arachnoid.com](http://www.arachnoid.com) Matt ---
**Author:** ![bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bigdaddy71)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 4:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wrong-content-type-when-trying-to-parse-emails-with-net-ima/70486/4 "2006-09-30T16:56:28Z")
ok, maybe i overexplained… if i look at the RFC822.HEADER, it says Content-type: Multipart/Mixed; boundary=Message-Boundary-22611 however, BODYSTRUCTURE says otherwise #\“US-ASCII”}, content\_id=nil, description=nil, encoding=“7BIT”, size=218060, lines=2959, md5=nil, disposition=nil, language=nil, extension=nil\> the size and lines correspond to the size of the entire mail. BODYSTRUCTURE should be Net::IMAP::BodyTypeMultipart BODY[1] shows: –Message-Boundary-22611 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-description: blah blah blah blah blah blah –Message-Boundary-22611 Content-Type: Application/Octet-stream; name=FOOBAR.ZIP Content-transfer-encoding: BASE64 …[base64 encoded data]… –Message-Boundary-22611– if BODYSTRUCTURE were multipart, the above would have been parsed by Net::IMAP into the corresponding parts for me to parse, each part being BodyTypeText and BodyTypeBasic respectively. now, what i would EXPECT, is that the BODYSTRUCTURE corresponds with the header and should be multipart/mixed, which would then allow me to grab the parts described above, but as i have explained this is not the case. I deal with other emails that are structured the same way and the BODYSTRUCTURE does in fact show as multipart/mixed so the only thing i can surmise from this is that Net::IMAP is not interpreting the content-type of the mail correctly and defaults to text/plain us-ascii, as described in the RFC. now whether it’s a problem internal to Net::IMAP or perhaps the message itself (it was sent using Pegasus Mail v3.50, a DOS application), i have no way of knowing, and was looking for insight. Chris