GZipStream

Before further delving into the details, I would like to explain what GZipStream is. GZipStream is used to compress the data in gzip format. GZipStream compress with namespace System.IO.Compress. Sending the gzip compressed data to server reduces the file size and gets the bandwidth benefit. Using the GZipStream class we can work in such a way with data in memory, as well as in disk.

Client Code for compressing the file using C#.Net

Take a windows form application and drag a button on to the form. On the click event of the button write the following code.

string url = "http://server/GzipSample/Handler2.ashx";

            HttpWebRequest myHttpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);           

            myHttpWebRequest.Method = "POST";           

            myHttpWebRequest.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";                       

            myHttpWebRequest.Headers.Add("Content-Encoding", "gzip");

            //the above code creates an httpwebrequest and adds the required Headers to transfer the compressed data

            FileStream infile = new FileStream("E:\\sample.txt", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read);

            byte[] buffer = new byte[infile.Length];

            int count = infile.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);

            if (count != buffer.Length)

            {

                infile.Close();

                return;

            }

            infile.Close();

            //the above code converts the filestream to bytes

            Stream newStream = myHttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream();

            GZipStream compressedzipStream = new GZipStream(newStream, CompressionMode.Compress);           

            compressedzipStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);

            compressedzipStream.Close();

            //The above code send the gzip compressed data the server as mentioned in the url

            HttpWebResponse httpWebResponse = (HttpWebResponse)myHttpWebRequest.GetResponse();

            httpWebResponse.Close();

Take a sample file sample.txt  and put some data in the following format

Suresh Kumar

Satheesh Babu

Sravan Kumar

End

When you click the button and observe the fiddler the http request is sent in the following format

POST http://server/GzipSample/Handler2.ashx HTTP/1.1

Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Content-Encoding: gzip

Host: server

Content-Length: 145

Expect: 100-continue

Connection: Keep-Alive

_?_?????_??_`_I?%&/m?{J?J??t?_?`_$?@_??????_iG#)?*??eVe]f_@????{???{???;?N'????\fd_l??J??!???_?~|_?"^?????z??q_??????~??t9??_?_&???

Server code on the Asp.Net application to decompress the data

Write an HttpHandler Handler1.ashx to process the request. Write the following code to decompress the data.

public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)

        {           

            String File = "C:\\Temp\\decompress.txt";

            using (StreamReader textReader = GetStreamReader(context))

            using (StreamWriter textWriter = new StreamWriter(File))

            {

                String line = "";

                do

                {

                    textWriter.WriteLine(line);

                    line = textReader.ReadLine();

                } while (!line.Contains("End"));

            }

            context.Response.ContentType = "text/plain";

            context.Response.Write("Hello World");

        }

private static StreamReader GetStreamReader (HttpContext context)

        {           

            if (context.Request.Headers["Content-Encoding"] != null && context.Request.Headers["Content-Encoding"].Contains("gzip"))

            {

                return new StreamReader(

                    new GZipStream(context.Request.InputStream, CompressionMode.Decompress));

            }

            else

            {

                return new StreamReader(context.Request.InputStream);

            }

        }

Check the output file and compare with original file.