Node.js: Gzip compression?

Question

Am I wrong in finding that Node.js does no gzip compression and there are no modules out there to perform gzip compression? How can anyone use a web server that has no compression? What am I missing here? Should I try to—gasp—port the algorithm to JavaScript for server-side use?

Answer 1

Node v0.6.x has a stable zlib module in core now - there are some examples on how to use it server-side in the docs too.

An example (taken from the docs):

// server example // Running a gzip operation on every request is quite expensive. // It would be much more efficient to cache the compressed buffer. var zlib = require('zlib'); var http = require('http'); var fs = require('fs'); http.createServer(function(request, response) {   var raw = fs.createReadStream('index.html');   var acceptEncoding = request.headers['accept-encoding'];   if (!acceptEncoding) {     acceptEncoding = '';   }    // Note: this is not a conformant accept-encoding parser.   // See http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.3   if (acceptEncoding.match(/\bdeflate\b/)) {     response.writeHead(200, { 'content-encoding': 'deflate' });     raw.pipe(zlib.createDeflate()).pipe(response);   } else if (acceptEncoding.match(/\bgzip\b/)) {     response.writeHead(200, { 'content-encoding': 'gzip' });     raw.pipe(zlib.createGzip()).pipe(response);   } else {     response.writeHead(200, {});     raw.pipe(response);   } }).listen(1337); 

Answer 2

If you're using Express, then you can use its compress method as part of the configuration:

var express = require('express'); var app = express.createServer(); app.use(express.compress()); 

And you can find more on compress here: http://expressjs.com/api.html#compress

And if you're not using Express... Why not, man?! :)

NOTE: (thanks to @ankitjaininfo) This middleware should be one of the first you "use" to ensure all responses are compressed. Ensure that this is above your routes and static handler (eg. how I have it above).

NOTE: (thanks to @ciro-costa) Since express 4.0, the express.compress middleware is deprecated. It was inherited from connect 3.0 and express no longer includes connect 3.0. Check Express Compression for getting the middleware.