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= mime-types

home :: https://github.com/mime-types/ruby-mime-types/
code :: https://github.com/mime-types/ruby-mime-types/
bugs :: https://github.com/mime-types/ruby-mime-types/issues
rdoc :: http://rdoc.info/gems/mime-types/
continuous integration :: {<img src="https://travis-ci.org/mime-types/ruby-mime-types.png" />}[https://travis-ci.org/mime-types/ruby-mime-types]
test coverage :: {<img src="https://coveralls.io/repos/mime-types/ruby-mime-types/badge.png" alt="Coverage Status" />}[https://coveralls.io/r/mime-types/ruby-mime-types]

== Description

The mime-types library provides a library and registry for information about
MIME content type definitions. It can be used to determine defined filename
extensions for MIME types, or to use filename extensions to look up the likely
MIME type definitions.

MIME content types are used in MIME-compliant communications, as in e-mail or
HTTP traffic, to indicate the type of content which is transmitted. The
mime-types library provides the ability for detailed information about MIME
entities (provided as an enumerable collection of MIME::Type objects) to be
determined and used programmatically. There are many types defined by RFCs and
vendors, so the list is long but by definition incomplete; don't hesitate to
add additional type definitions (see Contributing.rdoc). The primary sources
for MIME type definitions found in mime-types is the
{IANA Media Types registry}[https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml],
RFCs, and W3C recommendations. It conforms to RFCs 2045 and 2231.

This is release 2.5 with a couple of bug fixes, updating to the latest IANA
type registry, and adding a user-contributed type. mime-types 2.x supports Ruby
1.9.2 or later.

=== mime-types 1.x End of Life

mime-types 2.0 was released in late 2013, and as of early 2015 there have been
no reported security issues for mime-types 1.x. With the release of mime-types
2.5, I setting the formal End of Life for mime-types 1.x for 2015-10-27 (the
second anniversary of the release of mime-types 2.0). After this date,
absolutely no pull requests for mime-types 1.x will be accepted.

=== mime-types Future

Even though there are a number of issues open, it is clear to me that there are
some fundamental changes that need to happen to both the data representation
and the API provided by mime-types. This cannot happen under the current
release, so all new development is focussing on an upcoming 3.0 release. The
target for the release is on or before the beginning of RubyConf 2015
(2015-11-15).

When 3.0 is released, mime-types 2.x will receive regular updates of the IANA
registry for two years following the release. It will also receive security
updates, if needed, for the same period. There will be no further feature
development on mime-types 2.x following the 3.0 release.

Coincident with the 3.0 release, I will release mime-types 2.99.0 that no
longer imports the data to fields that have been deprecated. If they work
because they derive data from that which is imported, they will continue to
work. The quarterly updates will be against 2.99.x.

== Synopsis

MIME types are used in MIME entities, as in email or HTTP traffic. It is useful
at times to have information available about MIME types (or, inversely, about
files). A MIME::Type stores the known information about one MIME type.

    require 'mime/types'

    plaintext = MIME::Types['text/plain'] # => [ text/plain ]
    text = plaintext.first
    puts text.media_type            # => 'text'
    puts text.sub_type              # => 'plain'

    puts text.extensions.join(" ")  # => 'txt asc c cc h hh cpp hpp dat hlp'
    puts text.preferred_extension   # => 'txt'
    puts text.friendly              # => 'Text Document'
    puts text.i18n_key              # => 'text.plain'

    puts text.encoding              # => quoted-printable
    puts text.binary?               # => false
    puts text.ascii?                # => true
    puts text.obsolete?             # => false
    puts text.registered?           # => true
    puts text == 'text/plain'       # => true
    puts 'text/plain' == text       # => true
    puts MIME::Type.simplified('x-appl/x-zip')
                                    # => 'appl/zip'

    puts MIME::Types.any? { |type|
      type.content_type == 'text/plain'
    }                               # => true
    puts MIME::Types.all?(&:registered?)
                                    # => false

    # Various string representations of MIME types

    qcelp = MIME::Types['audio/QCELP'].first # => audio/QCELP
    puts qcelp.content_type         # => 'audio/QCELP'
    puts qcelp.simplified           # => 'audio/qcelp'

    xwingz = MIME::Types['application/x-Wingz'].first # => application/x-Wingz
    puts xwingz.content_type        # => 'application/x-Wingz'
    puts xwingz.simplified          # => 'application/wingz'


== mime-types Modified Semantic Versioning

The mime-types library has one version number, but this single version number
tracks both API changes and registry data changes; this is not wholly
compatible with all aspects of {Semantic Versioning}[http://semver.org/];
removing a MIME type from the registry *could* be considered a breaking change
under some interpretations of semantic versioning (as lookups for that
particular type would no longer work by default).

mime-types uses a modified semantic versioning scheme. Given the version
MAJOR.MINOR:

1. If an incompatible API (code) change is made, the MAJOR version will be
   incremented, MINOR will be set to zero, and PATCH will be reset to the
   implied zero.

2. If an API (code) feature is added that does not break compatibilty OR if
   there are MIME types added, removed, or changed in the registry, the MINOR
   version will be incremented and PATCH will be reset to the implied zero.

3. If there is a bugfix to a feature added in the most recent MAJOR.MINOR
   release, OR if purely typographical errors are fixed in MIME types, the
   implied PATCH value will be incremented resulting in MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH.

In practical terms, there should be a MINOR release roughly monthly to track
updated or changed MIME types from the official IANA registry. This does not
indicate when new API features have been added, but all minor versions of
mime-types 2.x will be backwards compatible; the interfaces marked deprecated
will not be removed until at least mime-types 3.x or possibly later.

:include: Contributing.rdoc

:include: Licence.rdoc