# Help wanted: Accept header interpretation

**URL:** <https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/help-wanted-accept-header-interpretation/41373>\
**Category:** Django Internals\
**Created:** [June 9, 2025, 5:24pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/help-wanted-accept-header-interpretation/41373 "2025-06-09T17:24:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![sarahboyce](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/sarahboyce/32/12734_2.png) [@sarahboyce](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/sarahboyce)\
**Post date:** [June 10, 2025, 3:14pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/help-wanted-accept-header-interpretation/41373/3 "2025-06-10T15:14:20Z")

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After quite a bit of re-reading this is my interpretation.

To me, a media type must match to the most specific media range or media type that is defined in the Accept header.

This means that given an accept header:

```auto
Accept: text/*, text/plain, text/plain;format=flowed, */*

```

and a media type `text/plain;format=fixed`, we should associate the quality of `text/*` rather than `*/*`.

There is then an example to illustrate this in the RFC.

* * *

What I am interpret from the RFC that is less explicit is: when given a choice of media types, the media type that is associated with the highest quality is chosen.

In the RFC, there is this example:

> `Accept: audio/*; q=0.2, audio/basic`
> 
> is interpreted as “I prefer audio/basic, but send me any audio type if it is the best available after an 80% markdown in quality”.

I assume if I tweak the example, this should be true:

> `Accept: audio/basic; q=0.2, audio/*`
> 
> is interpreted as “I prefer an audio type, but send audio/basic after an 80% markdown in quality”.

Meaning that given the choice of `audio/basic` and `audio/mpeg`, I prefer `audio/mpeg`.

`HttpRequest.get_preferred_type()` returns `audio/basic` as the preferred type here. This is because `audio/basic` is a more specific match within the accept header media ranges/types than `audio/mpeg` but I think the specificity should only be taken into account when determining the quality.

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