javax.mail.internet

Class MimeUtility


public class MimeUtility
extends java.lang.Object

This is a utility class that provides various MIME related functionality.

There are a set of methods to encode and decode MIME headers as per RFC 2047. A brief description on handling such headers is given below:

RFC 822 mail headers must contain only US-ASCII characters. Headers that contain non US-ASCII characters must be encoded so that they contain only US-ASCII characters. Basically, this process involves using either BASE64 or QP to encode certain characters. RFC 2047 describes this in detail.

In Java, Strings contain(16 bit) Unicode characters. ASCII is a subset of Unicode(and occupies the range 0 - 127). A String that contains only ASCII characters is already mail-safe. If the String contains non US-ASCII characters, it must be encoded. An additional complexity in this step is that since Unicode is not yet a widely used charset, one might want to first charset-encode the String into another charset and then do the transfer-encoding.

Note that to get the actual bytes of a mail-safe String(say, for sending over SMTP), one must do

byte[] bytes = string.getBytes("iso-8859-1");
 The setHeader() and addHeader() methods on
 MimeMessage and MimeBodyPart assume that the given header values are 
 Unicode strings that contain only US-ASCII characters. Hence the callers 
 of those methods must insure that the values they pass do not contain non 
 US-ASCII characters. The methods in this class help do this.
 

The getHeader() family of methods on MimeMessage and MimeBodyPart return the raw header value. These might be encoded as per RFC 2047, and if so, must be decoded into Unicode Strings. The methods in this class help to do this.

Method Summary

static InputStream
decode(InputStream is, String encoding)
Decode the given input stream.
static String
decodeText(String etext)
Decode "unstructured" headers, that is, headers that are defined as '*text' as per RFC 822.
static String
decodeWord(String text)
The string is parsed using the rules in RFC 2047 for parsing an "encoded-word".
static OutputStream
encode(OutputStream os, String encoding)
Wrap an encoder around the given output stream.
static OutputStream
encode(OutputStream os, String encoding, String filename)
Wrap an encoder around the given output stream.
static String
encodeText(String text)
Encode a RFC 822 "text" token into mail-safe form as per RFC 2047.
static String
encodeText(String text, String charset, String encoding)
Encode a RFC 822 "text" token into mail-safe form as per RFC 2047.
static String
encodeWord(String text)
Encode a RFC 822 "word" token into mail-safe form as per RFC 2047.
static String
encodeWord(String text, String charset, String encoding)
Encode a RFC 822 "word" token into mail-safe form as per RFC 2047.
static String
getDefaultJavaCharset()
Get the default charset corresponding to the system's current default locale.
static String
getEncoding(DataHandler dh)
Same as getEncoding(DataSource) except that instead of reading the data from an InputStream it uses the writeTo method to examine the data.
static String
getEncoding(DataSource ds)
Get the content-transfer-encoding that should be applied to the input stream of this datasource, to make it mailsafe.
static String
javaCharset(String charset)
Convert a MIME charset name into a valid Java charset name.
static String
mimeCharset(String charset)
Convert a java charset into its MIME charset name.
static String
quote(String text, String specials)
A utility method to quote a word, if the word contains any characters from the specified 'specials' list.

Method Details

decode

public static InputStream decode(InputStream is,
                                 String encoding)
            throws MessagingException
Decode the given input stream. The Input stream returned is the decoded input stream. All the encodings defined in RFC 2045 are supported here. They include "base64", "quoted-printable", "7bit", "8bit", and "binary". In addition, "uuencode" is also supported.

Parameters:
is - input stream
encoding - the encoding of the stream.

Returns:
decoded input stream.


decodeText

public static String decodeText(String etext)
            throws UnsupportedEncodingException
Decode "unstructured" headers, that is, headers that are defined as '*text' as per RFC 822.

The string is decoded using the algorithm specified in RFC 2047, Section 6.1.1. If the charset-conversion fails for any sequence, an UnsupportedEncodingException is thrown. If the String is not an RFC 2047 style encoded header, it is returned as-is

Example of usage:

MimePart part = ...
String rawvalue = null;
String  value = null;
try {
if ((rawvalue = part.getHeader("X-mailer")[0]) != null)
value = MimeUtility.decodeText(rawvalue);
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
// Don't care
value = rawvalue;
} catch (MessagingException me) { }
return value;

Parameters:
etext - the possibly encoded value


decodeWord

public static String decodeWord(String text)
            throws ParseException,
                   UnsupportedEncodingException
The string is parsed using the rules in RFC 2047 for parsing an "encoded-word". If the parse fails, a ParseException is thrown. Otherwise, it is transfer-decoded, and then charset-converted into Unicode. If the charset-conversion fails, an UnsupportedEncodingException is thrown.

Parameters:

Throws:
ParseException - if the string is not an encoded-word as per RFC 2047.


encode

public static OutputStream encode(OutputStream os,
                                  String encoding)
            throws MessagingException
Wrap an encoder around the given output stream. All the encodings defined in RFC 2045 are supported here. They include "base64", "quoted-printable", "7bit", "8bit" and "binary". In addition, "uuencode" is also supported.

Parameters:
os - output stream
encoding - the encoding of the stream.

Returns:
output stream that applies the specified encoding.


encode

public static OutputStream encode(OutputStream os,
                                  String encoding,
                                  String filename)
            throws MessagingException
Wrap an encoder around the given output stream. All the encodings defined in RFC 2045 are supported here. They include "base64", "quoted-printable", "7bit", "8bit" and "binary". In addition, "uuencode" is also supported. The filename parameter is used with the "uuencode" encoding and is included in the encoded output.

Parameters:
os - output stream
encoding - the encoding of the stream.
filename - name for the file being encoded(only used with uuencode)

Returns:
output stream that applies the specified encoding.


encodeText

public static String encodeText(String text)
            throws UnsupportedEncodingException
Encode a RFC 822 "text" token into mail-safe form as per RFC 2047.

The given Unicode string is examined for non US-ASCII characters. If the string contains only US-ASCII characters, it is returned as-is. If the string contains non US-ASCII characters, it is first character-encoded using the platform's default charset, then transfer-encoded using either the B or Q encoding. The resulting bytes are then returned as a Unicode string containing only ASCII characters.

Note that this method should be used to encode only "unstructured" RFC 822 headers.

Example of usage:

MimePart part = ...
String rawvalue = "FooBar Mailer, Japanese version 1.1"
try {
// If we know for sure that rawvalue contains only US-ASCII
// characters, we can skip the encoding part
part.setHeader("X-mailer", MimeUtility.encodeText(rawvalue));
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
// encoding failure
} catch (MessagingException me) {
// setHeader() failure
}

Parameters:
text - unicode string

Returns:
Unicode string containing only US-ASCII characters


encodeText

public static String encodeText(String text,
                                String charset,
                                String encoding)
            throws UnsupportedEncodingException
Encode a RFC 822 "text" token into mail-safe form as per RFC 2047.

The given Unicode string is examined for non US-ASCII characters. If the string contains only US-ASCII characters, it is returned as-is. If the string contains non US-ASCII characters, it is first character-encoded using the platform's default charset, then transfer-encoded using either the B or Q encoding. The resulting bytes are then returned as a Unicode string containing only ASCII characters.

Note that this method should be used to encode only "unstructured" RFC 822 headers.

Parameters:
text - the header value
charset - the charset. If this parameter is null, the platform's default chatset is used.
encoding - the encoding to be used. Currently supported values are "B" and "Q". If this parameter is null, then the "Q" encoding is used if most of the characters to be encoded are in the ASCII charset, otherwise "B" encoding is used.

Returns:
Unicode string containing only US-ASCII characters


encodeWord

public static String encodeWord(String text)
            throws UnsupportedEncodingException
Encode a RFC 822 "word" token into mail-safe form as per RFC 2047.

The given Unicode string is examined for non US-ASCII characters. If the string contains only US-ASCII characters, it is returned as-is. If the string contains non US-ASCII characters, it is first character-encoded using the platform's default charset, then transfer-encoded using either the B or Q encoding. The resulting bytes are then returned as a Unicode string containing only ASCII characters.

This method is meant to be used when creating RFC 822 "phrases". The InternetAddress class, for example, uses this to encode it's 'phrase' component.

Parameters:
text - unicode string

Returns:
Unicode string containing only US-ASCII characters.


encodeWord

public static String encodeWord(String text,
                                String charset,
                                String encoding)
            throws UnsupportedEncodingException
Encode a RFC 822 "word" token into mail-safe form as per RFC 2047.

The given Unicode string is examined for non US-ASCII characters. If the string contains only US-ASCII characters, it is returned as-is. If the string contains non US-ASCII characters, it is first character-encoded using the platform's default charset, then transfer-encoded using either the B or Q encoding. The resulting bytes are then returned as a Unicode string containing only ASCII characters.

Parameters:
text - unicode string
charset - the MIME charset
encoding - the encoding to be used. Currently supported values are "B" and "Q". If this parameter is null, then the "Q" encoding is used if most of the characters to be encoded are in the ASCII charset, otherwise "B" encoding is used.

Returns:
Unicode string containing only US-ASCII characters


getDefaultJavaCharset

public static String getDefaultJavaCharset()
Get the default charset corresponding to the system's current default locale.

Returns:
the default charset of the system's default locale, as a Java charset.


getEncoding

public static String getEncoding(DataHandler dh)
Same as getEncoding(DataSource) except that instead of reading the data from an InputStream it uses the writeTo method to examine the data. This is more efficient in the common case of a DataHandler created with an object and a MIME type(for example, a "text/plain" String) because all the I/O is done in this thread. In the case requiring an InputStream the DataHandler uses a thread, a pair of pipe streams, and the writeTo method to produce the data.


getEncoding

public static String getEncoding(DataSource ds)
Get the content-transfer-encoding that should be applied to the input stream of this datasource, to make it mailsafe.

The algorithm used here is:

  • If the primary type of this datasource is "text" and if all the bytes in its input stream are US-ASCII, then the encoding is "7bit". If more than half of the bytes are non-US-ASCII, then the encoding is "base64". If less than half of the bytes are non-US-ASCII, then the encoding is "quoted-printable".
  • If the primary type of this datasource is not "text", then if all the bytes of its input stream are US-ASCII, the encoding is "7bit". If there is even one non-US-ASCII character, the encoding is "base64".

Parameters:
ds - DataSource

Returns:
the encoding. This is either "7bit", "quoted-printable" or "base64"


javaCharset

public static String javaCharset(String charset)
Convert a MIME charset name into a valid Java charset name.

Parameters:
charset - the MIME charset name

Returns:
the Java charset equivalent. If a suitable mapping is not available, the passed in charset is itself returned.


mimeCharset

public static String mimeCharset(String charset)
Convert a java charset into its MIME charset name.

Note that a future version of JDK(post 1.2) might provide this functionality, in which case, we may deprecate this method then.

Parameters:
charset - the JDK charset

Returns:
the MIME/IANA equivalent. If a mapping is not possible, the passed in charset itself is returned.


quote

public static String quote(String text,
                           String specials)
A utility method to quote a word, if the word contains any characters from the specified 'specials' list.

The HeaderTokenizer class defines two special sets of delimiters - MIME and RFC 822.

This method is typically used during the generation of RFC 822 and MIME header fields.

Parameters:
specials - the set of special characters

Returns:
the possibly quoted word