how to gzip content in asp.net MVC?

Question

how to compress the output send by an asp.net mvc application??

Answer 1

Here's what i use (as of this monent in time):

using  System.IO.Compression;

public class CompressAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
    public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
    {

        var encodingsAccepted = filterContext.HttpContext.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"];
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(encodingsAccepted)) return;

        encodingsAccepted = encodingsAccepted.ToLowerInvariant();
        var response = filterContext.HttpContext.Response;

        if (encodingsAccepted.Contains("deflate"))
        {
            response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "deflate");
            response.Filter = new DeflateStream(response.Filter, CompressionMode.Compress);
        }
        else if (encodingsAccepted.Contains("gzip"))
        {
            response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "gzip");
            response.Filter = new GZipStream(response.Filter, CompressionMode.Compress);
        }
    }
}

usage in controller:

[Compress]
public class BookingController : BaseController
{...}

there are other varients, but this works quite well. (btw, i use the [Compress] attribute on my BaseController to save duplication across the project, whereas the above is doing it on a controller by controller basis.

[Edit] as mentioned in the para above. to simplify usage, you can also include [Compress] oneshot in the BaseController itself, thereby, every inherited child controller accesses the functionality by default:

[Compress]
public class BaseController : Controller
{...}