Originally described for Internet Mail. Now also used by Web.
Describe type and format of contents. Allow browsers to automatically call
appropriate plug-in (the software which will display something
within a browser) or helper application (the software which will display
in something in separate window). Popular MIME
types (Content-Type):
- text/plain -- plain, unmarked text
- text/html -- text with HTML mark-up
- text/xml -- XML markup
- image/jpeg -- JPEG picture
- application/pdf -- Portable Document Format file
- application/octet-stream -- unstructured binary data to be saved.
- video/mpeg -- video
- video/quicktime -- video
- audio/x-wav -- audio
- application/x-www-form-urlencoded -- data from
the form sent from browser to server for regular forms
- multipart/form-data -- data from
the form sent from browser to server when you do file upload