Decoding Internationalised Email Headers

August 10th, 2010
email, python
Every so often someone will email me something where the subject has unicode in it. My naive tools don't know what to do with it, and I see stuff like:
=?UTF-8?Q?[Sociological_Images]_New_Comment_On:_Satter=E2=80=99s_Hierarch?=  =?UTF-8?Q?y_of_Food_Needs?=
It turns out python has a module for this, providing email.header.decode_header. This gives me:
[Sociological_Images] New Comment On: Satter's Hierarchy of Food Needs
So much nicer.

I am continually happily surprised at the fraction of the time that what I want is already implemented in the python standard library.

Comment via: facebook

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy

Look! A therapy technique people don't already know!

via Thing of Things May 14, 2025

Workshop House case study

Lauren Hoffman interviewed me about Workshop House and wrote this post about a community I’m working on building in DC.

via Home April 30, 2025

Impact, agency, and taste

understand + work backwards from the root goal • don’t rely too much on permission or encouragement • make success inevitable • find your angle • think real hard • reflect on your thinking

via benkuhn.net April 19, 2025

more     (via openring)