Content Encoding

TurboHTTP automatically decompresses compressed HTTP responses. When a server sends a Content-Encoding header, TurboHTTP decompresses the body transparently before returning the response — the calling code always receives plain, uncompressed content.

Supported Encodings

Encoding	Header token	Notes
Gzip	gzip, x-gzip	Most common; used by the majority of web servers
Deflate	deflate	Handles both zlib-wrapped and raw deflate formats
Brotli	br	Best compression ratio; requires modern server support
Identity	identity	No compression; body passed through unchanged

How It Works

For HTTP/1.1 requests, TurboHTTP automatically adds Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br to every outgoing request unless you have already set an Accept-Encoding header yourself. This tells the server which encodings the client can handle.

When a response arrives:

1. TurboHTTP reads the Content-Encoding header.
2. The body is decompressed using the appropriate algorithm.
3. The Content-Encoding header is removed from the response.
4. Content-Length is updated to reflect the decompressed size.

The final HttpResponseMessage you receive has an uncompressed body and accurate content headers.

var response = await client.SendAsync(new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "/data"));

// Body is already decompressed — no manual handling needed
var text = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();

Stacked Encodings

If a response uses multiple encodings (e.g., Content-Encoding: gzip, br), TurboHTTP decodes them in the correct reverse order — the outermost encoding is decoded first. This matches how stacked encodings are applied by the server.

Unknown Encodings

If the server sends a Content-Encoding value that TurboHTTP does not recognise, it throws HttpDecoderException rather than silently returning corrupted data. This prevents your application from processing a response body it cannot correctly interpret.

Overriding Accept-Encoding

To request a specific encoding (or no compression at all), set Accept-Encoding on the request before sending:

// Request no compression
var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "/data");
request.Headers.AcceptEncoding.ParseAdd("identity");

var response = await client.SendAsync(request);

// Request only gzip
var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "/data");
request.Headers.AcceptEncoding.ParseAdd("gzip");

var response = await client.SendAsync(request);

When AcceptEncoding is already set on the request, TurboHTTP skips its automatic Accept-Encoding injection and uses your value instead.

HTTP/2 Requests

For HTTP/2 requests, TurboHTTP does not automatically inject Accept-Encoding. If you want compressed responses over HTTP/2, add the header explicitly:

var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "/data");
request.Version = HttpVersion.Version20;
request.Headers.AcceptEncoding.ParseAdd("gzip, br");

var response = await client.SendAsync(request);
// Body is decompressed automatically if the server compresses it

Decompression itself works the same regardless of protocol version — if the server includes a Content-Encoding header, TurboHTTP decodes the body.