I had a requirement to POST gzipped JSON content to a .NET web api controller. It turns out the technique for doing this is not easy, or at least not common knowledge. This is the solution I came up with that works:
public class GZipToJsonHandler : DelegatingHandler
{
protected override Task SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
// Handle only if content type is 'application/gzip'
if (request.Content.Headers.ContentType == null ||
request.Content.Headers.ContentType.MediaType != "application/gzip")
{
return base.SendAsync(request, cancellationToken);
}
// Read in the input stream, then decompress in to the outputstream.
// Doing this asynronously, but not really required at this point
// since we end up waiting on it right after this.
Stream outputStream = new MemoryStream();
Task task = request.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync().ContinueWith(t =>
{
Stream inputStream = t.Result;
var gzipStream = new GZipStream(inputStream, CompressionMode.Decompress);
gzipStream.CopyTo(outputStream);
gzipStream.Dispose();
outputStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
});
// Wait for inputstream and decompression to complete. Would be nice
// to not block here and work async when ready instead, but I couldn't
// figure out how to do it in context of a DelegatingHandler.
task.Wait();
// This next section is the key...
// Save the original content
HttpContent origContent = request.Content;
// Replace request content with the newly decompressed stream
request.Content = new StreamContent(outputStream);
// Copy all headers from original content in to new one
foreach (var header in origContent.Headers)
{
request.Content.Headers.TryAddWithoutValidation(header.Key, header.Value);
}
// Replace the original content-type with content type
// of decompressed data. In our case, we can assume application/json. A
// more generic and reuseable handler would need some other
// way to differentiate the decompressed content type.
request.Content.Headers.Remove("Content-Type");
request.Content.Headers.Add("Content-Type", "application/json");
return base.SendAsync(request, cancellationToken);
}
}
Added to the MessageHandlers in WebApiConfig.cs with:
config.MessageHandlers.Add(new GZipToJsonHandler());
Using this approach, existing controllers which normally work with JSON content and automatic model binding, continue to work without any changes. Related StackOverflow question with my answer here.