What's the difference between using application/csv vs text/csv?

http mime-types
Glide picture Glide · Sep 21, 2013 · Viewed 42.9k times · Source

What's the difference between using application/csv vs text/csv as the HTTP Accept Header?

Answer

G-Man picture G-Man · Sep 21, 2013

A MIME type is used so software ( like a browser for example ) can know how to handle the data.

If a server says "This data is of type text/csv" the client can understand that can render that data internally, while if the server says "This data is of type application/csv" the client knows that it needs to launch the application that is registered on the OS to open csv files.

text/csv is more generic.

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