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Media type
In information and communications technology, a media type, content type or MIME type is a two-part identifier for file formats and content formats. Their purpose is comparable to filename extensions and uniform type identifiers, in that they identify the intended data format. They are mainly used by technologies underpinning the Internet, and also used on Linux desktop systems.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the official authority for the standardization and publication of these classifications. Media types were originally defined in Request for Comments RFC 2045 (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies (Nov 1996) in November 1996 as a part of the MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) specification, for denoting type of email message content and attachments; hence the original name, MIME type. Media types are also used by other internet protocols such as HTTP, document file formats such as HTML, and the XDG specifications implemented by Linux desktop environments, for similar purposes.
Different internet standards or web standards bodies differ on the preferred term for this type of identifier.
The IANA and IETF use the term "media type", and consider the term "MIME type" to be obsolete, since media types have become used in contexts unrelated to email, such as HTTP. By contrast, the WHATWG continues to use the term "MIME type" and discourages use of the term "media type" as ambiguous, since it is used with a different meaning in connection with the CSS @media feature.
The HTTP response header for providing the media type is Content-Type. The W3C has used ContentType as an XML data-type name for a media type. XDG specifications implemented by Linux desktop environments continue to use the term "MIME type".
A media type consists of a type and a subtype, which is further structured into a tree. A media type can optionally define a suffix and parameters:
As an example, an HTML file might be designated text/html; charset=UTF-8. In this example, text is the type, html is the subtype, and charset=UTF-8 is an optional parameter indicating the character encoding.
Types, subtypes, and parameter names are case-insensitive. Parameter values are usually case-sensitive, but may be interpreted in a case-insensitive fashion depending on the intended use.
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Media type
In information and communications technology, a media type, content type or MIME type is a two-part identifier for file formats and content formats. Their purpose is comparable to filename extensions and uniform type identifiers, in that they identify the intended data format. They are mainly used by technologies underpinning the Internet, and also used on Linux desktop systems.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the official authority for the standardization and publication of these classifications. Media types were originally defined in Request for Comments RFC 2045 (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies (Nov 1996) in November 1996 as a part of the MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) specification, for denoting type of email message content and attachments; hence the original name, MIME type. Media types are also used by other internet protocols such as HTTP, document file formats such as HTML, and the XDG specifications implemented by Linux desktop environments, for similar purposes.
Different internet standards or web standards bodies differ on the preferred term for this type of identifier.
The IANA and IETF use the term "media type", and consider the term "MIME type" to be obsolete, since media types have become used in contexts unrelated to email, such as HTTP. By contrast, the WHATWG continues to use the term "MIME type" and discourages use of the term "media type" as ambiguous, since it is used with a different meaning in connection with the CSS @media feature.
The HTTP response header for providing the media type is Content-Type. The W3C has used ContentType as an XML data-type name for a media type. XDG specifications implemented by Linux desktop environments continue to use the term "MIME type".
A media type consists of a type and a subtype, which is further structured into a tree. A media type can optionally define a suffix and parameters:
As an example, an HTML file might be designated text/html; charset=UTF-8. In this example, text is the type, html is the subtype, and charset=UTF-8 is an optional parameter indicating the character encoding.
Types, subtypes, and parameter names are case-insensitive. Parameter values are usually case-sensitive, but may be interpreted in a case-insensitive fashion depending on the intended use.