Variant object

Variant objects in the context of HTTP are objects served by an Origin Content Server in a type of transmitted data variation.
HTTP/1.1 introduces Content/'Accept' headers. These are used in HTTP requests and responses to state which variant the data is presented in.

Example scenario

Client:

GET /encoded_data.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
Accept-Encoding: gzip

Server:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: http-example-server
Content-Length: 23
Content-Encoding: gzip
<23 bytes of gzip compressed data>