XML and MIME

=XML=

An XML document is a text document that consists of an XML declaration and a root element with well-formed content.

"Example XML Document" Blah

MIME

MIME is an Internet Standard that allows email systems to interpret complex data. Web browsers also use the MIME type to accurately display information or launch a separate application to handle the data.

All MIME types (called Internet media type) consist of two parts, in the form type/subtype.

This information is sent to the browser by a web server. Usually, the server determines the MIME type based on the document's file extension. For example, the server would interpret an extension of ".txt" (plain text file) to have a MIME type of "text/plain".

XML Specific MIME Types

There are two MIME assignments for XML data. These are:
*application/xml (RFC 3023)
*text/xml (RFC 3023)

Because of the wide variety of documents that can be expressed using an XML syntax, additional MIME types are needed to differentiate between languages. XML-based formats add a suffix of "+xml" to the MIME type.

The followings are some examples of common XML media types.

*Registered
** Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML): application/xhtml+xml (RFC 3236)
** Atom: application/atom+xml (RFC 4287)

*Registration-In-Progress
** Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT): [http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt20/#xslt-mime-definition application/xslt+xml]
** Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG): [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGMobile12/mimereg.html image/svg+xml]

*Unregistered
** Mathematical Markup Language (MathML): application/mathml+xml
** Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0): application/rss+xml

External links

* [http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/ Official List of MIME Types]

* [http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-mxd2.html IBM article]