Our Dev teams are like yours. They’re continually cranking out code for new features/bugs fixes, testing, deploying, responding to production monitoring events and more. It’s complex. So, we thought you’d like to see what’s working for us. Read the use case whitepaper.
Course Of The Month
1 day, 19 hours left to enrollBecome a Premium Member and unlock a new, free course in leading technologies each month.
Solved
Browser passes content-type as application/octet-stream
Posted on 2014-02-24
I have a JSP page with a file selector. User selects a document on this page and submits it to the server which then does some processing with the document.
Below is a code snippet -
when the form is submitted, I have traced this request through Fiddler and noticed that for doc, docx, xls etc the content-type is getting set as application/octet-stream
However for other types, like pdf, txt, png etc it is being set to the correct content-type. Example,
For .doc files, I would have expected it to be set as application/msword but that is not the case. Can someone please help me understand why this is happening and what do I need to do to correct this.
Thanks in anticipation.
Below is a code snippet -
<form name="import_form" id="import_form" action='<%= request.getParameter("bpurl") %>/http/upload_doc' method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
....
<input type="file" class="file" name="doc_import" id="doc_import" onchange="displayDocLabel(this);"/>
....
</form>
when the form is submitted, I have traced this request through Fiddler and noticed that for doc, docx, xls etc the content-type is getting set as application/octet-stream
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="doc_import"; filename="Troubleshooting.doc"
Content-Type: application/octet-stream
However for other types, like pdf, txt, png etc it is being set to the correct content-type. Example,
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="doc_import"; filename="Dok_5.pdf"
Content-Type: application/pdf
For .doc files, I would have expected it to be set as application/msword but that is not the case. Can someone please help me understand why this is happening and what do I need to do to correct this.
Thanks in anticipation.
[X]
Welcome to Experts Exchange
Add your voice to the tech community where 5M+ people just like you are talking about what matters.
- Help others & share knowledge
- Earn cash & points
- Learn & ask questions
2
2
5 Comments
In our system it has to do with the mime type of the file as understood by the server. So it sounds as if your server doesn't have a mime type definitions for .docx, or if it has one, the definition is application/octet-stream.
Check the web server configuration.
Check the web server configuration.
I don't believe that there is an IANA registration that a server could use so it defaults to the general application MIME type. I expect that like a lot of ther things MS is out of the mainstream and application/msword is probably only used internally by Office and Windows.
However even if they exist it is not likely that a web server would be configured to something that specific and proprietary when they have very little use in a web-centric environment.
Cd&
However even if they exist it is not likely that a web server would be configured to something that specific and proprietary when they have very little use in a web-centric environment.
Cd&
the app server does have application/wsword and other mime types defined.
Upon further research I have noticed that if the end user machine (where user is using a browser to upload the file), has MS Office installed then correct mime type gets passed for all MS office formats. If there is no MS Office installed, it always passes application/octet-stream.
Is that a known limitation?
Upon further research I have noticed that if the end user machine (where user is using a browser to upload the file), has MS Office installed then correct mime type gets passed for all MS office formats. If there is no MS Office installed, it always passes application/octet-stream.
Is that a known limitation?
COBOLdinosaur: have to agree with some and disagree with others. Yes, MS is proprietary. However, all business web sites, if they do any volume and allow any upload or download of MS files, have those mime types defined in their servers.
ank5: I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Having MS products installed is not a limitation, and not having them installed is not a limitation. Having web servers which do not have the proprietary MS mime types is not so much a limitation (well, it can have an effect) as a business choice on the part of the web server business owners.
Is there something that you want to have happen which is not?
ank5: I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Having MS products installed is not a limitation, and not having them installed is not a limitation. Having web servers which do not have the proprietary MS mime types is not so much a limitation (well, it can have an effect) as a business choice on the part of the web server business owners.
Is there something that you want to have happen which is not?
If the server s configured to recognize the Office MIME types and not using those MIME types, the the clients sending the file do not have the correct header to indicate what they are. It is likely that a client without office does not send the correct header which I suspect would be dependent on a registry setting.
The whole issue is really irrelevant unless there is some function that requires the Office MIME type on the server. As long as the file stores correctly; what is the issue.
Cd&
The whole issue is really irrelevant unless there is some function that requires the Office MIME type on the server. As long as the file stores correctly; what is the issue.
Cd&
Featured Post
Question has a verified solution.
If you are experiencing a similar issue, please ask a related question
Suggested Solutions
| Title | # Comments | Views | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| DTD and JAVA versions | 1 | 59 | |
| Add a little space on either side of a table. | 12 | 33 | |
| .CSS HTML Help | 3 | 58 | |
| Ordering displaying data in a drop down | 3 | 15 |
When it comes to write a
Context Sensitive Help
(an online help that is obtained from a specific point in state of software to provide help with that state)
,
first we need to make the file that contains all topics, which are given exclusive IDs. …
Originally, this post was published on Monitis Blog, you can check it
here
.
Websites are getting bigger and more complicated by the day. Video, images and custom fonts are all great for showcasing your product or service. But the price to pay in…
- Web Development
- Web Applications
- HTML
- Magento
- Hosting
- *Monitoring tool, Web Development Software, Monitis, *Monitoring Software, Networking
In this tutorial viewers will learn how to code links for mobile sites that, once clicked, send a call or text to a specified number.
For a telephone link (once clicked, calls a number), begin with a normal "<a href=" link tag. For the href, specify…
In this tutorial viewers will learn how to style a corner ribbon overlay for an image using CSS
Create a new class by typing ".Ribbon": Define the class' "display:" as "inline-block": Define its "position:" as "relative": Define its "overflow:" as …
Suggested Courses
Course of the Month1 day, 19 hours left to enroll
710 members asked questions and received personalized solutions in the past 7 days.
Join the community of 500,000 technology professionals and ask your questions.