MIME-Based Transformations - Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 for Effective MySQL Management - page 237

For a specific field, it is possible to indicate only one type of transformation.
Here, the field is a BLOB field. Hence, it can hold any kind of data. In order for
phpMyAdmin to interpret and act correctly on the data, the transformation system
must be informed of the data format and the intended results. Accordingly, we have
to ensure that we upload data that always follows the same file format.

We will first learn the purpose of those attributes and then try some possibilities in
the Examples of transformation section.

MIME types
The MIME specification ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME ) has been chosen
as a metadata attribute to categorize the kind of data a column holds. Multipurpose
Internet Mail Extensions ( MIME ), originally designed to extend mail, are now used
to describe content types for other protocols as well. In the context of phpMyAdmin,
the current possible values are:

• image/jpeg

• image/png

• text/plain

• application/octetstream

The text/plain type can be chosen for a column containing any kind of text (for
example, XHTML or XML text). In the Examples of Transformations section, you'll see
which MIME type you are required to choose to achieve a specific effect.