Question

What does the Content-Type field in a HTTP response contain?

1) The status code
2) The actual content of the response, i.e. the HTML document
3) The MIME type of the content
4) The type of the content, as a file extension - i.e. .html for a HTML file
5) The type of the response, i.e. success/failure etc.

Answer 1

The Content-Type field in an HTTP response contains the MIME type of the content, such as 'text/html' for HTML documents, indicating what type of data the client should expect and how to handle it.

Step-by-step explanation:

The Content-Type field in an HTTP response header specifies the MIME type of the content being sent. This tells the browser or client what type of data to expect and how to interpret it. It is not to be confused with the actual content, the status code, or the specific file extension of the content.

For example, if the server is sending an HTML document, the Content-Type will be text/html. If the server is sending a JSON object, it would be an application/json. This field is critical for the correct rendering or processing of the received data by the client.