I've been messing around with JSON for some time, just pushing it out as text and it hasn't hurt anybody (that I know of), but I'd like to start doing things properly.
I have seen so many purported "standards" for the JSON content type:
application/json
application/x-javascript
text/javascript
text/x-javascript
text/x-json
But which one is correct, or best? I gather that there are security and browser support issues varying between them.
I know there's a similar question, What MIME type if JSON is being returned by a REST API?, but I'd like a slightly more targeted answer.
38 Answers
IANA has registered the official MIME Type for JSON as application/json.
When asked about why not text/json, Crockford seems to have said JSON is not really JavaScript nor text and also IANA was more likely to hand out application/* than text/*.
More resources:
Of course, the correct MIME media type for JSON is application/json, but it's necessary to realize what type of data is expected in your application.
For example, I use Ext GWT and the server response must go as text/html but contains JSON data.
Client side, Ext GWT form listener
uploadForm.getForm().addListener(new FormListenerAdapter()
{
@Override
public void onActionFailed(Form form, int httpStatus, String responseText)
{
MessageBox.alert("Error");
}
@Override
public void onActionComplete(Form form, int httpStatus, String responseText)
{
MessageBox.alert("Success");
}
});
In case of using application/json response type, the browser suggests me to save the file.
Server side source code snippet using Spring MVC
return new AbstractUrlBasedView()
{
@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
@Override
protected void renderMergedOutputModel(Map model, HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception
{
response.setContentType("text/html");
response.getWriter().write(json);
}
};
JSON:
Response is dynamically generated data, according to the query parameters passed in the URL.
Example:
{ "Name": "Foo", "Id": 1234, "Rank": 7 }
Content-Type: application/json
