SQL MIME Type

About SQL script files

Registered in RFC 6922. Many servers don’t map .sql at all and send application/octet-stream or text/plain. Database dumps can be large and compress very well, so send them gzipped (.sql.gz) rather than relying on on-the-fly compression.

Other types seen for these files: text/x-sql , text/plain . Accept them when reading uploads, but send application/sql yourself.

File signature

SQL has no fixed signature: it is text without a magic number, so validate uploads by parsing the content rather than by checking bytes.

Serve .sql with the right Content-Type

Content-Type: application/sql; charset=utf-8

application/sql sql;

AddType application/sql .sql
AddCharset UTF-8 .sql

@sql path *.sql
header @sql Content-Type "application/sql; charset=utf-8"

curl -sI https://example.com/file.sql | grep -i '^content-type'
# Content-Type: application/sql; charset=utf-8

Set the type in code

res.set('Content-Type', 'application/sql; charset=utf-8');

import mimetypes

mimetypes.add_type('application/sql', '.sql')  # if your system doesn't know it
mimetypes.guess_type('file.sql')[0]  # 'application/sql'

mime.AddExtensionType(".sql", "application/sql; charset=utf-8")
w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "application/sql; charset=utf-8")

Accept .sql uploads

<input type="file" accept=".sql,application/sql">

The accept attribute only filters the file picker; users can still choose another file. Listing the extension as well as the type matters, because operating systems don’t always report the type you expect.

Related types

• .csv (text/csv): CSV
• .gz (application/gzip): Gzip file
• .txt (text/plain): Plain text

More data and text

.tsv , .md , .json , .ndjson , .jsonld , .xml , .yaml , .geojson , .ics . Look up any extension or type with the MIME type lookup.

Sources

• IANA registration: application/sql
• MDN: Common media types

Spotted a mistake? Email hello@devtoolsmith.com and we’ll fix it.

Frequently asked questions