MIME Types

One very important HTTP response header is the content type. The
content-type header tells the web browser what type of data the URL is attached to.
For example, to determine the type of content at a URL, you would use the following line of
code:
Console.WriteLine(response.Headers["Content-Type"]);

 

This type of information is called a Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME). The
“Mail” in MIME is largely historical. MIME types were originally developed for email attachments,
long before there was a World Wide Web (WWW). However, they are now applied to
many different Internet applications, such as web browsers and servers.

 

A MIME type consists of two identifiers separated by a slash (/). For example,
text/html is a mime type that identifies a resource as an HTML document. The first
part of the type, in this case text, identifies the family of the type. The second identifies the
exact type, within that family. Plain text files are also part of the text family, and have the
type text/plain.