Node

Node.js Request Module With Gzip/gunzip

Using request module is the most popular way to get/post to a HTTP endpoint in Node.js.

A common question while using request is: How do I gunzip a HTTP response?

There are multiple solutions I have seen, and some didn’t work for me.

There are some more advanced ones, using streams.

Here’s mine:

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var request = require('request');
var zlib = require('zlib');

var options = {
  url: 'http://some.endpoint.com/api/',
  headers: {
    'X-some-headers'  : 'Some headers',
    'Accept-Encoding' : 'gzip, deflate',
  },
  encoding: null
};

request.get(options, function (error, response, body) {

  if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) {
    // If response is gzip, unzip first
    var encoding = response.headers['content-encoding']
    if (encoding && encoding.indexOf('gzip') >= 0) {
      zlib.gunzip(body, function(err, dezipped) {
        var json_string = dezipped.toString('utf-8');
        var json = JSON.parse(json_string);
        // Process the json..
      });
    } else {
      // Response is not gzipped
    }
  }

});

The above will also fix for Incorrect header check error, with encoding: null option.

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