Android: HTTP communication should use "Accept-Encoding: gzip"

Question

I've a HTTP communication to a webserver requesting JSON data. I'd like compress this data stream with Content-Encoding: gzip. Is there a way I can set Accept-Encoding: gzip in my HttpClient? The search for gzip in the Android References doesn't show up anything related to HTTP, as you can see here.

Answer 1

You should use http headers to indicate a connection can accept gzip encoded data, e.g:

HttpUriRequest request = new HttpGet(url); request.addHeader("Accept-Encoding", "gzip"); // ... httpClient.execute(request); 

Check response for content encoding:

InputStream instream = response.getEntity().getContent(); Header contentEncoding = response.getFirstHeader("Content-Encoding"); if (contentEncoding != null && contentEncoding.getValue().equalsIgnoreCase("gzip")) {     instream = new GZIPInputStream(instream); }