HttpWebRequest and gzip

Question

Do I need to specify in my request that I wish to accept gzip, or is this default behavior? I am talking to a WCF RESTful Json service.

// Create the web request  
HttpWebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(address) as HttpWebRequest;

request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"] = "gzip";

Answer 1

Actually, you should just set AutomaticDecompression, the WebRequest will set Accept-Encoding for you automatically.

request.AutomaticDecompression = DecompressionMethods.GZip