29.12. Adding and Editing MIME Types

MIME types are the method used by Apache, mail clients, and many other programs to indicate the type of files and other data. A MIME type consists of two words separated by a slash, such as text/html, image/gif, or video/mpeg. As those examples show, the first word is the general category of type, while the second is the actual type name.

Every response sent by a web server to a browser is accompanied by a type, so that the browser knows how to display it. When a normal file is requested, the web server typically works out the type by looking at the file's extension, such as .gif or .html. CGI programs must supply their type to the web server before any other content that they generate, which is then forwarded ...

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