### 7.1.2.2 Parser class API

The `Parser` class, imported from the `email.parser` module, provides an API that can be used to parse a message when the complete contents of the message are available in a string or file. The `email.parser` module also provides a second class, called `HeaderParser` which can be used if you're only interested in the headers of the message. `HeaderParser` can be much faster in these situations, since it does not attempt to parse the message body, instead setting the payload to the raw body as a string. `HeaderParser` has the same API as the `Parser` class.

class `Parser`( | [_class])

  The constructor for the `Parser` class takes an optional argument _class. This must be a callable factory (such as a function or a class), and it is used whenever a sub-message object needs to be created. It defaults to `Message` (see `email.message`). The factory will be called without arguments.

  The optional strict flag is ignored.

  Deprecated since release 2.4. Because the `Parser` class is a backward compatible API wrapper around the new-in-Python 2.4 `FeedParser`, all parsing is effectively non-strict. You should simply stop passing a strict flag to the `Parser` constructor.

  Changed in version 2.2.2: The strict flag was added. Changed in version 2.4: The strict flag was deprecated.

The other public `Parser` methods are:

`parse`( | fp[, headersonly])

  Read all the data from the file-like object fp, parse the resulting text, and return the root message object. fp must support both the `readline()` and the `read()` methods on file-like objects.

  The text contained in fp must be formatted as a block of RFC 2822 style headers and header continuation lines, optionally preceded by a envelope header. The header block is terminated either by the end of the data or by a blank line. Following the header block is the body of the message (which may contain MIME-encoded subparts).

  Optional headersonly is as with the `parse()` method.

  Changed in version 2.2.2: The headersonly flag was added.

`parsestr`( | text[, headersonly])

  Similar to the `parse()` method, except it takes a string object instead of a file-like object. Calling this method on a string is exactly equivalent to wrapping text in a `StringIO` instance first and calling `parse()`.

  Optional headersonly is a flag specifying whether to stop parsing after reading the headers or not. The default is `False`, meaning it parses the entire contents of the file.

  Changed in version 2.2.2: The headersonly flag was added.

Since creating a message object structure from a string or a file object is such a common task, two functions are provided as a convenience. They are available in the top-level `email` package namespace.

`message_from_string`( | s[, _class[, strict]])

  Return a message object structure from a string. This is exactly equivalent to `Parser().parsestr(s)`. Optional _class and strict are interpreted as with the `Parser` class constructor.

  Changed in version 2.2.2: The strict flag was added.

`message_from_file`( | fp[, _class[, strict]])

  Return a message object structure tree from an open file object. This is exactly equivalent to `Parser().parse(fp)`. Optional _class and strict are interpreted as with the `Parser` class constructor.

  Changed in version 2.2.2: The strict flag was added.

Here's an example of how you might use this at an interactive Python prompt:

    >>> import email
    >>> msg = email.message_from_string(myString)