What is REST content negotiation?
In HTTP, content negotiation is the mechanism that is used for serving different representations of a resource at the same URI, so that the user agent can specify which is best suited for the user (for example, which language of a document, which image format, or which content encoding).
What is accept header and Content-Type?
Accept header is used by HTTP clients to tell the server which type of content they expect/prefer as response. Content-type can be used both by clients and servers to identify the format of the data in their request (client) or response (server) and, therefore, help the other part interpret correctly the information.
What is the difference between the content type header and accept type header?
Accept and Content-type are both headers sent from a client(browser say) to a service. Accept header is a way for a client to specify the media type of the response content it is expecting and Content-type is a way to specify the media type of request being sent from the client to the server.
Which HTTP header is used for content negotiation?
While the Accept header is not as visible as URLs or parameters, this header is a more flexible method of handling content negotiation. You can also use the HTTP Accept, Accept-Charset, Accept-Language, and Accept-Encoding headers to determine the type of content that is returned from the server.
How is Accept header based content negotiation used?
Implementing Accept header based content negotiation is most used and recommened way. Another way to pass content type information to the server, the client may use the specific extension in resource URIs. For example, a client can ask for details using:
How does content negotiation work in a REST API?
So, most REST API implementations rely on agent driven content negotiations. Agent driven content negotiation rely on usage of HTTP request headers or resource URI patterns. Content negotiation using HTTP headers At server side, an incoming request may have an entity attached to it.
Which is an example of a content negotiation?
Content negotiation using HTTP headers. At server side, an incoming request may have an entity attached to it. To determine it’s type, server uses the HTTP request header Content-Type. Some common examples of content types are “text/plain”, “application/xml”, “text/html”, “application/json”, “image/gif”, and “image/jpeg”.
Do you use Accept header or accept accept?
The trade-offs between the two aren’t very significant and both are acceptable styles. The proper official RESTful approach is to use Accept: header. However, you have to be careful not to break cacheability, which is one of REST’s requirements. You need to have Vary: Accept header and cache which understands it.