How can i find a string in an email attachment

[newtri13]

I want to download attachments from email and search through them for a string of characters such as http://.  The attachments will be in many formats, .doc, .html, .pdf.  I am unfamiliar with mime and wanted to know if there is a way i can parse through the mime to search for a string.  Or do I need to actually decode all the attachments, save them as the original files and then find individual modules to parse through each individual file type.  If someone can just point me in the right direction I can go from there.  Thanks in advance for any help.

[TrustyTony]

Check out http://docs.python.org/library/email