[vox-tech] MHT mime type

[Bill Kendrick]

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 01:05:19PM -0500, ALLO (Alfredo Lopez De Leon) wrote:
> and also
> 
> application/octet-stream

This isn't really specific to any kind of data.
It just means a stream of octets (8-bit bytes).

Wikipedia sez:

  "The Internet media type for an arbitrary byte stream is
  application/octet-stream. Other media types are defined for byte
  streams in well-known formats."


When accepting file uploads from browsers, I've coded up my
form-accepting code to see this as one of the 'useless catch-alls'
that a browser might report.  In other words, when someone goes
to upload an MS Word DOC file, I _might_ get one of a vast
variety of MIME types that seem to mean "MS Word DOC".[*]  But if I get
"application/octet-stream", I end up using a fileinfo library to
try and determine what, exactly, the data actually was.


[*] So far, I've seen:
  application/msword, application/x-msword-doc, application/x-msword,
  {OCTAL 12}- application/msword, x-type/x-doc, application/vnd.ms-word,
  application/vnd.msword, application/vnd.ms-office,
  application/mswordapplication

  Also, the 'catch-alls' I've discovered I need to use, so far include:
  application/octet-stream, application/download, application/x-ole-storage,
  application/x-download

  And finally, iTunes seems to screw up some people's browsers, causing it
  to report the MIME type of anything they try to upload as being some
  "iTunes LP" file.  Nergh!


-bill!