Media Types

A Media Type is a description of a file format plus a description of the interactions a client can make when viewing the file. Media Types are referenced using their identifier. In online documentation the term Media Type is often used to mean either the Media Type description or the Media Type identifier.

A simple example of a media type is the GIF format, identified using image/gif. It has no interactions (it doesn't link to anything) and has a specification that tells clients how they should display it.

Identifiers

Media Type identifiers are constructed using a tree part, a subtype and optionally a suffix. A full example is: application/vnd.delftsolutions.contact_us.v1+json. Here the tree is application, the subtype is vnd.delftsolutions.contact_us.v1 and the suffix is json.