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Configuring your HttpClient to automagically decompress the response

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Recently I was writing a simple HttpClient to interface with a REST API.  Typically I just pass the response string to a JSON converter and get my object out the other end.  However, in my case I was getting the following error from my converter:

Newtonsoft.Json.JsonReaderException was caught
_HResult=-2146233088
_message=Unexpected character encountered while parsing value: . Path '', line 0, position 0.
HResult=-2146233088
IsTransient=false
Message=Unexpected character encountered while parsing value: . Path '', line 0, position 0.
Source=Newtonsoft.Json
LineNumber=0
LinePosition=0
Path=""
StackTrace:
at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonTextReader.ParseValue()
at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonTextReader.ReadInternal()
at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonTextReader.Read()
at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalReader.ReadForType(JsonReader reader, JsonContract contract, Boolean hasConverter)
at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalReader.Deserialize(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, Boolean checkAdditionalContent)
at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializer.DeserializeInternal(JsonReader reader, Type objectType)
at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializer.Deserialize(JsonReader reader, Type objectType)
at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(String value, Type type, JsonSerializerSettings settings)
at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject[T](String value, JsonSerializerSettings settings)
at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject[T](String value)
at WSDSForumAPI.StackOverflow.<GetPostsForTag>d__0.MoveNext()
InnerException:

When I looked into the issue the string being passed to the converter looked like this:

"�\b\0\0\0\0\0\0��ko�6��\n��ɌD….."

I attached fiddler, and then realized that my response content was compressed, as the response had the following header:

Content-Encoding: gzip

So I set out to figure out how to decompress the content.   It turns out this is fairly simple.   Just create a HttpClientHandler and set its AutomaticDecompression to the type of compression used in the response.  The following code snippet is what I ended up with for my scenario:

Copy Code:

 HttpClientHandler handler = new HttpClientHandler(); handler.AutomaticDecompression = System.Net.DecompressionMethods.GZip; _client = new HttpClient(handler);

That is it for this blog post.  Simple and to the point.  Until next time have fun coding!

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- Bret Bentzinger(Microsoft) @awehellyeah

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 21, 2015
    Thanks for sharing, I've stumbled upon this too, in a cross platform web hybrid project. Both Android and IOS have auto decompression on by default. Any idea why it's not on by greatly in .net? Thanks

  • Anonymous
    May 21, 2015
    I recommend expanding on this to include the Deflate algorithm. Here's my approach: if(handler.SupportsAutomaticDecompression) { handler.AutomaticDecompression = DecompressionMethods.GZip | DecompressionMethods.Deflate; }