[Zope] Zope and mime types ???

Thomas B. Passin tpassin@mitretek.org
Fri, 5 Oct 2001 17:54:02 -0400


[Frank Stephan]

>
> I have a problem with Zope and mime types.
> I have Zope 2.4.1 running behind Apache web server and
> the product I use is the DocumentLibrary. Th DL
> determines the type of document by analyzing the content type.
> When I upload a Word document from a machine where Word is installed
> the correct type 'application/msword' is found. But uploading the same
file
> from a PC without a Word installation the 'application/octet-stream' type
> is determined. Now I am totally confused about content types and mime
types.
>

When you upload one of these files, it is presumably through a browser
running on that machine, and it would be the browser that determine what
MIME type to send.  Internet Explorer would look in the registry to find
out.  I don't know what Netscape or Opera would do.

It looks like the registry does not know about Word files until Word has
been installed.  I can't check this myself because Word is installed on all
the Windows computers I have access to.

One place the MIME type is located in the registry is:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.doc

This is probably the key place that MS products would look for the MIME
type.  Notice that it is mapped to a file extension, since there is no
independent way for Windows to know the type.  This is probably the key
installed by Word.

You probably cannot do anything to make sure that you get this MIME type
unless you map it yourself at the server.

Cheers,

Tom P