This page is part of the FHIR Specification (v3.2.0: R4 Ballot 1). The current version which supercedes this version is 5.0.0.  For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions  . Page versions: R5 R4B R4 R3 R2
. Page versions: R5 R4B R4 R3 R2
| FHIR Infrastructure  Work Group | Maturity Level: 5 | Normative | Compartments: Not linked to any defined compartments | 
Detailed Descriptions for the elements in the Binary resource.
| Binary | |
| Definition | A binary resource can contain any content, whether text, image, pdf, zip archive, etc. | 
| Control | 1..1 | 
| Requirements | There are situations where it is useful or required to handle pure binary content using the same framework as other resources. | 
| Summary | true | 
| Comments | Typically, Binary resources are used for handling content such as: * CDA Documents (i.e. with XDS) * PDF Documents * Images (the Media resource is preferred for handling images, but not possible when the content is already binary - e.g. XDS). | 
| Binary.contentType | |
| Definition | MimeType of the binary content represented as a standard MimeType (BCP 13). | 
| Control | 1..1 | 
| Terminology Binding | MimeType  : | 
| Type | code | 
| Summary | true | 
| Binary.securityContext | |
| Definition | Treat this binary as if it was this other resource for access control purposes. | 
| Control | 0..1 | 
| Type | Reference(Any) | 
| Summary | true | 
| Binary.content | |
| Definition | The actual content, base64 encoded. | 
| Control | 1..1 | 
| Type | base64Binary | 
| Summary | true | 
| Comments | If the content type is itself base64 encoding, then this will be base64 encoded twice - what is created by un-base64ing the content must be the specified content type. |