mimeparse module¶

MIME-Type Parser

This module provides basic functions for handling mime-types. It can handle matching mime-types against a list of media-ranges. See section 14.1 of the HTTP specification [RFC 2616] for a complete explanation.

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.1

Contents:

parse_mime_type(): Parses a mime-type into its component parts.
parse_media_range(): Media-ranges are mime-types with wild-cards and a ‘q’ quality parameter.
quality(): Determines the quality (‘q’) of a mime-type when compared against a list of media-ranges.
quality_parsed(): Just like quality() except the second parameter must be pre-parsed.
best_match(): Choose the mime-type with the highest quality (‘q’) from a list of candidates.

mimeparse.parse_mime_type(mime_type)[source]¶

Carves up a mime-type and returns a tuple of the (type, subtype, params) where ‘params’ is a dictionary of all the parameters for the media range. For example, the media range ‘application/xhtml;q=0.5’ would get parsed into:

(‘application’, ‘xhtml’, {‘q’, ‘0.5’})

mimeparse.parse_media_range(range)[source]¶

Carves up a media range and returns a tuple of the (type, subtype, params) where ‘params’ is a dictionary of all the parameters for the media range. For example, the media range ‘application/*;q=0.5’ would get parsed into:

In addition this function also guarantees that there is a value for ‘q’ in the params dictionary, filling it in with a proper default if necessary.

mimeparse.fitness_and_quality_parsed(mime_type, parsed_ranges)[source]¶: Find the best match for a given mime-type against a list of media_ranges that have already been parsed by parse_media_range(). Returns a tuple of the fitness value and the value of the ‘q’ quality parameter of the best match, or (-1, 0) if no match was found. Just as for quality_parsed(), ‘parsed_ranges’ must be a list of parsed media ranges.

mimeparse.quality_parsed(mime_type, parsed_ranges)[source]¶: Find the best match for a given mime-type against a list of media_ranges that have already been parsed by parse_media_range(). Returns the ‘q’ quality parameter of the best match, 0 if no match was found. This function bahaves the same as quality() except that ‘parsed_ranges’ must be a list of parsed media ranges.

mimeparse.quality(mime_type, ranges)[source]¶

Returns the quality ‘q’ of a mime-type when compared against the media-ranges in ranges. For example:

>>> quality('text/html','text/*;q=0.3, text/html;q=0.7, text/html;level=1, text/html;level=2;q=0.4, */*;q=0.5')
0.7

mimeparse.best_match(supported, header)[source]¶

Takes a list of supported mime-types and finds the best match for all the media-ranges listed in header. The value of header must be a string that conforms to the format of the HTTP Accept: header. The value of ‘supported’ is a list of mime-types.

>>> best_match(['application/xbel+xml', 'text/xml'], 'text/*;q=0.5,*/*; q=0.1')
'text/xml'