Weird characters in body after request response

Question

I am using NodeJS and Request to post JSON and get a result with data in it.

I set this request up with Postman and I get the JSON data back which is completely readable.

{
  "d": {
    "__type": "Qvision.WoningenModule.Lib.aanbodcollection",
    "testOutput": "",
    "filter": null,
     ...
     etc.
  }
}

I generated the code snippet from Postman so I could put it on my NodeJS server with Request required.

When I try to run the request on my node server a encoded body.

      ��`I�%&/m�{J�J��t�`$ؐ@�������iG#)�*��eVe]f@�흼��{����{����;�N'���?\fdl��J�ɞ!���?~|?"~�G�����~�߿�^�=��'.������V�by�/��f�2?/&�,[N�ٴ*�|�R��F�y�~�nW��^��ϋ����-�eI�Vm���Z�������|�ѣ��"���b�}�h�|+4���~QWU����>������Ge6�ˆ�_��"����^o��bF�HO<��GM[gYK���E�\/���G[��UN^��eN��͊�Ң��A_?�n���Ƙ˼Z�������f@��z�Qb=)��Zѯ��|�Fo+z�.~m.�z��墚�%��̫�uMs�y1�x�uA����>���Ų��/�fZ��h����"����Y����͐Ƣ@w���w����5+s;�����1��2�$��G��?������Ų�b�O�ˬ����9���~P-gy�L��|i/�����Q��$_��H�E��_�|Y���� <s8��/��8�����$��?~��C�J#{�3������o6ķ{�wSU4����YK���j�L�D�K�D��K�kan '$����uQ��ĺ�]�� ��J4Z������O������O?������O~�'��~��d?�N�{���G��{;����ݽ����*��}j���O�@�N�^=�ڊ>+�Dƍ�]%QM�wjy���������!�)� ��������g���?�&����R����i�|�6��N�U�v��o�> ���;����`��?xpp��"f��������;�v��U�sДy~V�����w�o�m~�:#�������x�Ӄ��ß������`g��A�$�����>�G�z����b���ߧ$�;�;�_�Mȼ�lv�`��po�vxNB{Y�WP?�����{{�j��t���g�˽����C�>1j��G         jE���?���Ux�/ww���b2�DI���ݧ��aK� k5���}n]���|�tgw��:�;;���J���S�O��>�O��/���\x�=��?��/�>B����O���;��:ݻ�G��9�%�v<�h䱶^:��{|�KF����{�����o�4����.�M�<�=��w�����I����+M��>i�{�ݽ��=�|oߨb3ޟ�.����v�����j��n�z|x��*1u?�~JF����à������c&}mФK�س���f���t���&ELF���e��>�Y��?�.fUճ�;��oh����oЪ�?��#��si�)Z����9������~��/>������Ҍ��}���KR�Cf����=��� 6�$3������Y5�~����vw�Hż�lvHf|�������Rh�s�T��gnj����ݿo{�Y1�ԉ�o���{�`g_�kv̸��>y��>4���ϒ�;}@����l�Ϛ���O*l�S#�1ey����uЌ�����'�ۆ��o�ʤu�"җ��O~�,�{�����[Xo1��FQ����t���F�sk���h�|��d�������=��٦���>�)F��=ܷif3���.)�J)_�~VͶ��>E��ΰ�9�Y�����`��N��f��{� �ώ��z�Oi����턺���O?}`����1�~���;v6a=�̶�)-���6��7g�7tI���}�T���Mf������*ofy��ZbY��.�B��M���g�l� 3�?ͷ;�"���n�@_|sv{��� ���ݦo����ߟ�@�m\"�w����o?=��,��s;�v��7��Y�r�!%���c��Y���[R7����h�ڭX���)�}������ޣ���~�p�ٱ�~�(ͱc��d�g��������[1��ٱ�~�H�K��h��NHT��u��5��w������e���ɢ�LZt�)=s~��C^�v������Ɓ!K� �����F�x�c՟W-�I���U4�5Ɠl88�ױ�;����ￏx������5I�R84%�J�s��|�<���ʚS��ӇdQ��O����W���g�GR{�~�=���r�ׇ�0����UL��bv��������&��>%"�^v��)��},�h�?+v��n����33����q�?Z8~H|���gɊ{}�k���C#�?kF������c�����^6�W��9,2�]������0�5���X.�D�0��&;�SD(�������ڈ��� 5F�����1�?��<�j��#���Ů�QψS�m����|�%������/�_�<~�����9�e^^��nה���
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Like this. In Postman the data is fine but in Node it isn't. How can this be? There is nothing wrong with my request as far as I know:

var request = require("request");

var options = { method: 'POST',
  url: '****',
  headers: 
   { 'postman-token': '****',
     cookie: '****',
     'accept-language': 'nl-NL,nl;q=0.8,en-US;q=0.6,en;q=0.4',
     'accept-encoding': 'gzip, deflate, br',
     referer: '****',
     'content-type': 'application/json; charset=UTF-8',
     'user-agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/51.0.2704.103 Safari/537.36',
     'x-requested-with': 'XMLHttpRequest',
     origin: '****',
     accept: 'application/json, text/javascript, */*; q=0.01',
     'cache-control': 'no-cache',
     pragma: 'no-cache',
     'content-length': '1035',
     connection: 'keep-alive',
     host: '****' },
  body: '{"****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************}',
  //encoding: null
   };

request(options, function (error, response, body) {
  if (error) throw new Error(error);
  console.log(body);
});

The console.log gives the data shown in the 2nd code snippet.

Can someone explain to me what's going on and why this works in postman but not in Node?

Answer 1

Most likely the data you're seeing is compressed (with gzip) since you are sending a header that says you are willing to accept such a response. Set gzip: true in your request() options and request should automatically decompress the body passed to your callback.

Or just remove the 'accept-encoding': 'gzip, deflate, br' line in your headers object to not request gzip compression.

Answer 2

Removing "Accept-Encoding": "gzip,deflate" from header worked for me.