The mailcap module

This module contains code to deal with “mailcap” files, which contain information on how to deal with different document formats (on Unix platforms).

Example: Using the mailcap module to get a capability dictionary

# File: mailcap-example-1.py

import mailcap

caps = mailcap.getcaps()

for k, v in caps.items():
    print k, "=", v

image/* = [{'view': 'pilview'}]
application/postscript = [{'view': 'ghostview'}]

In the above example, the system uses pilview for all kinds of images, and ghostscript viewer for PostScript documents.

Example: Using the mailcap module to find a viewer

# File: mailcap-example-2.py

import mailcap

caps = mailcap.getcaps()

command, info = mailcap.findmatch(
    caps, "image/jpeg", "view", "samples/sample.jpg"
    )

print command

pilview samples/sample.jpg