Knowledge base
Internet
Mime types
Knowledge is the art of knowing what’s needed to solve the problem
Knowledge is the art of knowing what’s needed to solve the problem
In this section we put together all kinds of information that we
find useful in our daily work. The material is a collection of
information from various sources including bulletin boards,
mailgroups, manuals, magazines, books, seminar handouts and
independent research.
This information is provided without warranty of any kind. There
is no further support available. Each individual must determine
the applicability and accuracy of this information to their
specific environment.
What is mime?
MIME is a standard for describing different types of information This was originally meant to be used to specify encoding for different types of information into text. This made it possible to send them as e-mail.
The standard MIME is also used in other types of communication where there is a need for specifying which type of information is used. This could be your local operating system or a web server.
How do I read MIME in my mail?
Mime is just a specification. Normally the information is encoded with some other standard format. When decoded it regains it original shape.
To be able to read the file you need an application that can handle the attached file. If two files, a word document and a image is sent by email they would both get encoded as mime. Upon receiving these files there need to be an application associated with each file type. Microsoft word or maybe another word processor would be associated with the word document making it possible to read the file. Photoshop or another image viewer would be associated with the image.
Normally the conversion from MIME to files is handled by the e-mail application. When the file is stored on disk it is up to the operating system to map an application to file type.
This is our collection of different types...
The world evolves every day and new types are added!
