Re: lynx-dev mime-types, server responsibility, etc..

[Ismael Cordeiro]

On Sun, 3 Jan 1999, David Woolley wrote:

> > HTTP servers have a kind of mime.types files where any mime type can be
> > attributed to any file extension.
> 
> That's an implementation detail, although it is true for most servers.
> It is, however, possible to override on a file by file basis on good 
> servers, or vary the rules from directory to directory.

I've never found a reference about HTTP servers being able to attribute
media types in a file by file basis. Do you know where I could find more
information on that?

> The problem that people may have is with cheap (or bundled) web space, in
> that the administrators want to minimise the amount of work they do rather
> than support people with uncommon file formats.

A couple of years ago a friend asked me for help about her web site, hosted
on a HTTP server running Apache. Her web site was about Commodore computers
and binary files with Commodore extensions like SFX, SDA, PRG and CVT were
being sent with "Content-type: text/plain", what was confusing some users.
The system administrator said that he could do nothing, that Apache could
only handle extensions like ZIP, GIF, JPG, etc. I looked for information in
the Apache web site and found it. I told her to create on the top directory
of her web site a text file named ".htaccess" with

AddType     application/octet-stream     sfx
AddType     application/octet-stream     sda
AddType     application/octet-stream     prg
AddType     application/octet-stream     cvt

and the problem disappeared.

Ismael
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