Python - using continue statement to skip iteration, however still writing to file

Question

I am using Python and O365 the Microsoft Office 365 Python API package. Here is the link to the package: https://github.com/O365/python-o365

I am writing a script to automate sending emails with certain properties and to skip emails with other properties that I am not interested in.

I filtered all emails to only yield the ones with a specific email subject , now I am filtering them further.

Here is my code:

from O365 import Account, FileSystemTokenBackend, message, connection, MSGraphProtocol

import datetime
import traceback
import logging

todays_date = datetime.datetime.now()
todays_day = todays_date.day

#Accessing mailbox

mailbox = account.mailbox("myemail@email.com")

inbox = mailbox.inbox_folder()
junk_folder = mailbox.junk_folder()
messages_retrieved_from_inbox = inbox.get_messages()
messages_retrieved_from_junkfolder = junk_folder.get_messages(limit= 30, download_attachments= True)



#Taking care of messages
blacklisted_keywordsA = ['abc', 'def', 'ghi']
blacklisted_keywordsB = ['sometext', 'someothertext']

with open("myFile.txt", "a+", encoding="UTF-8") as my_file:
    for message in messages_retrieved_from_junkfolder:
       if(message.subject == "Some Subject" and message.created.day == todays_day):
           print("Found Email with that subject that I am looking for!")
           message_body = message.get_body_text()
           for keywordA in blacklisted_keywordsA:
               if(keywordA in message_body):
                   print("BlackListed keywordA ! Skip this inquiry.")
                   continue
           
           for keywordB in blacklisted_keywordsB:
               if(keywordB in message_body):
                   print("Blacklisted keywordB! Skip this inquiry.")
                   continue
    
           my_file.write("My Message:\n")
           my_file.write(message_body)

        

       else:
           print("Not Interested in this Email!")

The continue statement is supposed to skip the current iteration when it finds keywordA which is in the message_body. Note: keywordA is in blacklisted_keywordsA list and same for KeywordB which is in blacklisted_keywordsB list.

For some reason, it's not skipping the iteration and still writing the email that I am not interested in to the file, even though it contains blacklisted keywords, What is a possible solution to such problem ?

Answer 1

The issue is that continue will continue the innermost loop. In this code:

for keywordB in blacklisted_keywordsB:
  if(keywordB in message_body):
    print("Blacklisted keywordB! Skip this inquiry.")
    continue

The continue statement will continue the for keywordB in.... loop, not the outer loop. See: https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/controlflow.html#break-and-continue-statements-and-else-clauses-on-loops

One option you have is to set a flag that gets checked when you do the write. Something like this:

skip_message = False
for keywordB in blacklisted_keywordsB:
  if(keywordB in message_body):
    print("Blacklisted keywordB! Skip this inquiry.")
    skip_message = True
    break #Break out of the keyword loop

if not skip_message:
  my_file.write("My Message:\n")
  my_file.write(message_body)