How convert an mbox to a JSON structure? - python-3.x

Question

I am trying to convert an mbox to a JSON structure suitable for import into MongoDB i.e.
I am using mining social web second edition mailbox chapter but its not working properly.
I am trying to convert an mbox to a JSON structure suitable for import into MongoDB i.e.
I am using mining social web second edition mailbox chapter but its not working properly.
import sys
import mailbox
import email
import quopri
import json
import time
from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup
from dateutil.parser import parse
MBOX = 'resources/ch06-mailboxes/data/enron.mbox'
OUT_FILE = MBOX + '.json'
def cleanContent(msg):
# Decode message from "quoted printable" format, but first
# re-encode, since decodestring will try to do a decode of its own
msg = quopri.decodestring(msg.encode('utf-8'))
# Strip out HTML tags, if any are present.
# Bail on unknown encodings if errors happen in BeautifulSoup.
try:
soup = BeautifulSoup(msg)
except:
return ''
return ''.join(soup.findAll(text=True))
# There's a lot of data to process, and the Pythonic way to do it is with a
# generator. See http://wiki.python.org/moin/Generators.
# Using a generator requires a trivial encoder to be passed to json for object
# serialization.
class Encoder(json.JSONEncoder):
def default(self, o): return list(o)
# The generator itself...
def gen_json_msgs(mb):
while 1:
msg = mb.next()
if msg is None:
break
yield jsonifyMessage(msg)
def jsonifyMessage(msg):
json_msg = {'parts': []}
for (k, v) in msg.items():
json_msg[k] = v.decode('utf-8', 'ignore')
# The To, Cc, and Bcc fields, if present, could have multiple items.
# Note that not all of these fields are necessarily defined.
for k in ['To', 'Cc', 'Bcc']:
if not json_msg.get(k):
continue
json_msg[k] = json_msg[k].replace('\n', '').replace('\t', '').replace('\r', '')\
.replace(' ', '').decode('utf-8', 'ignore').split(',')
for part in msg.walk():
json_part = {}
if part.get_content_maintype() != 'text':
print >> sys.stderr, "Skipping MIME content in JSONification
({0})".format(part.get_content_maintype())
continue
json_part['contentType'] = part.get_content_type()
content = part.get_payload(decode=False).decode('utf-8', 'ignore')
json_part['content'] = cleanContent(content)
json_msg['parts'].append(json_part)
# Finally, convert date from asctime to milliseconds since epoch using the
# $date descriptor so it imports "natively" as an ISODate object in MongoDB
then = parse(json_msg['Date'])
millis = int(time.mktime(then.timetuple())*1000 + then.microsecond/1000)
json_msg['Date'] = {'$date' : millis}
return json_msg
mbox = mailbox.UnixMailbox(open(MBOX, 'rb'), email.message_from_file)
# Write each message out as a JSON object on a separate line
# for easy import into MongoDB via mongoimport
f = open(OUT_FILE, 'w')
for msg in gen_json_msgs(mbox):
if msg != None:
f.write(json.dumps(msg, cls=Encoder) + '\n')
f.close()
print "All done"
getting error:
80 # for easy import into MongoDB via mongoimport
81
---> 82 f = open(OUT_FILE, 'w')
83 for msg in gen_json_msgs(mbox):
84 if msg != None:
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'resources/ch06-mailboxes/data/enron.mbox.json'

Answer 1

The code you mentioned became obsolete in Third Edition of Mining Social Web
I tried making a workable script that not just converts MBOX to JSON, but even extracts the Attachments to usable formats.
Link to the repo -
https://github.com/PS1607/mbox-to-json
Read the README file for usage instructions.

Answer 2

It seems that your problem is related to user permissions instead of Python. Line 82 tries to open a file in the "data" folder, but permission was denied. You should try executing your script using the sudo command from a terminal:
sudo python3 <your script name>
This should take care of the error you pointed out.
PS: Python 3 uses print as a function; line 88 should read
print('All done')