Q:

Custom Media Types Used In Request's Body Content Type When Designing A REST Service?

When creating your own custom media type format (say application/vnd.myapp+xml), should the client when sending body content, do so in the custom media type?
For example you PUT a representation of an order to a uri.  Should the content be application/vnd.myapp+xml, or just xml, since the client is not going to be including hypermedia controls like links?
The server will always respond with the custom media type if the user accepts it (which it should), but do clients have to use it in their request bodies?

A:

Clients don't necessarily have to send data to the server (e.g. via PUT or POST) using the same media type that the server sends back in a GET response.  It's up to the service to decide what media types it can receive and what types it will return.  And of course, it can be implemented so as to support multiple media types in both directions for the same resource.

