Problem emailing CSV file that was read as a binary file

[Joshua Fialkoff]

Hi all,

I have this function that helps send emails with attachments:

def send_email(…):

    …

    msg = EmailMessage(

            subject, body, send_from,

            recipients_list, cc=cc, bcc=bcc,

            headers={'Reply-To': reply_to})

    msg.attach_alternative(html_body, "text/html")

    for f in files:

        try:

            email_fn, path = f

        except (ValueError, TypeError):

            path = f

            _, email_fn = os.path.split(path)

        with open(path, 'rb') as f:

            contents = f.read()

            msg.attach(email_fn, contents)

    msg.send()

In the case where path points to a file with a text mimetype (e.g., 'text/csv'), this fails with this error:

AttributeError: 'bytes' object has no attribute 'encode'

Here's an excerpt from django.core.mail.message. The error occurs on the line 4.

        basetype, subtype = mimetype.split('/', 1)

        if basetype == 'text':

            encoding = self.encoding or settings.DEFAULT_CHARSET

            attachment = SafeMIMEText(content, subtype, encoding)

        elif basetype == 'message' and subtype == 'rfc822':

            # Bug #18967: per RFC2046 s5.2.1, message/rfc822 attachments

            # must not be base64 encoded.

            if isinstance(content, EmailMessage):

                # convert content into an email.Message first

                content = content.message()

            elif not isinstance(content, Message):

                # For compatibility with existing code, parse the message

                # into an email.Message object if it is not one already.

                content = message_from_string(content)

            attachment = SafeMIMEMessage(content, subtype)

        else:

            # Encode non-text attachments with base64.

            attachment = MIMEBase(basetype, subtype)

            attachment.set_payload(content)

            Encoders.encode_base64(attachment)

        return attachment

My question is, why not use base64 encoding if the attachment content is specified as bytes?

[Shu Latif]

 Did you ever get this working? I am having the same issue with django 1.8. I see there was some sort of bug reported but I think the fix was in a later release. Not sure what I can do since I cannot upgrade.

[Jason]

Why not upload the file to S3 or some storage and include the download link in the email?