4. Discrete Media Type Values

The five discrete top-level media types are: text, image, audio, video, and application.

4.1. Text Media Type

The text media type is used for information represented in textual form.

4.1.1. Representation of Line Breaks

The content of text types is assumed to be line-oriented. Line breaks must be represented using the CRLF sequence.

4.1.2. Charset Parameter

The most important parameter for text types is the charset parameter. It specifies the character set used to represent the text.

Common Character Sets:

• US-ASCII: 7-bit ASCII (default)
• UTF-8: Unicode UTF-8 encoding (recommended)
• ISO-8859-1: Western European languages
• GB2312, GBK, GB18030: Simplified Chinese
• Big5: Traditional Chinese
• Shift_JIS, EUC-JP: Japanese

4.1.3. Plain Subtype

text/plain is the most basic text subtype, representing plain text.

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

4.1.4. Other Text Subtypes

• text/html: HTML documents
• text/css: CSS stylesheets
• text/javascript: JavaScript code
• text/csv: Comma-separated values
• text/xml: XML documents

4.2. Image Media Type

The image media type is used to convey static (non-animated) graphic image data.

Common Subtypes:

• image/jpeg: JPEG images
• image/png: PNG images
• image/gif: GIF images (can include animation)
• image/svg+xml: SVG vector graphics
• image/webp: WebP images

Content-Type: image/jpeg

4.3. Audio Media Type

The audio media type is used to transmit audio or voice data.

Common Subtypes:

• audio/mpeg: MP3 audio
• audio/mp4: MP4 audio
• audio/wav: WAV audio
• audio/ogg: Ogg Vorbis
• audio/webm: WebM audio

Content-Type: audio/mpeg

4.4. Video Media Type

The video media type is used to transmit video or moving image data, possibly with audio.

Common Subtypes:

• video/mp4: MP4 video
• video/mpeg: MPEG video
• video/ogg: Ogg Theora
• video/webm: WebM video

Content-Type: video/mp4

4.5. Application Media Type

The application media type is used for discrete data that does not fit into other types.

4.5.1. Octet-Stream Subtype

application/octet-stream is used for binary data with unspecified or unknown subtype.

Content-Type: application/octet-stream

4.5.2. PostScript Subtype

application/postscript is used for PostScript programs.

4.5.3. Other Application Subtypes

• application/pdf: PDF documents
• application/json: JSON data
• application/xml: XML data
• application/zip: ZIP compressed files
• application/javascript: JavaScript
• application/x-www-form-urlencoded: Form data

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Summary:

Type	Purpose	Common Subtypes
text	Textual data	plain, html, css
image	Images	jpeg, png, gif
audio	Audio	mpeg, wav, ogg
video	Video	mp4, mpeg, webm
application	Other	pdf, json, zip, octet-stream

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