Data Transfer Mechanism
Now that we've introduced the basics of data transfer and manipulating a clipboard and provided a simple example of cutting and pasting text to/from the system clipboard, let's take a closer look at the data transfer mechanism.
Data Flavors
No, you cannot taste data; flavor, in this case, can be thought of as a synonym for format. One data flavor for an image, for instance, might be a java.awt.Image; another flavor for an image might be an array of pixels representing the image in question.
Data flavors actually fall into two general categories:
A Java class
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Type Representation[2]
[2] If you want to read the gory details concerning MIME types, check out http://206.21.31.20/notes/rfcs1/30ee_1e2.htm ...
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