extracting email Received: headers with Python email package

Question

I'd like to extract the Final Received: email header from a message. I have the Message as returned from

email.message_from_file()

.

Using the

Message.get()

or

Message.get_item()

methods don't guarantee which of the many Received: headers I will get.

Message.get_all()

returns them all, but doesn't guarantee an order. Is there a way to be guaranteed to get the last one?

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Answer 1

Received: headers are timestamped:

Received: from lb-ex1.int.icgroup.com (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by lb-ex1.localdomain (Postfix) with ESMTP id D6BDB1E26393
for <hd1@example.com>; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 12:09:24 -0500 (EST)

So, do messageInstance.get_all() and sort the resulting list however you see fit, an example of how to do this:

import email.utils
import operator
def sort_key(received_header):
    received_date = email.utils.parsedate_tz(received_header)
    return received_date

received_header_list.sort(key=sort_key)

If it doesn't work, do leave a comment and I'll be happy to look into it further.

extracting email Received: headers with Python email package

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