Error loading webpage while parsing JSON-string

Question

Please have a look at my code where I'm trying to compress data using connect.compress middleware. How can I parse the JSON string in browser to get the decompressed data? When I try to hit localhost:2080 I'm getting a page loading error.

Client code:

var options = {
host: '127.0.0.1',
port: 2080,
path: "/",
headers:{
'accept-encoding': 'gzip'
}
};
var req = http.request(options, function(res) {
console.log('STATUS: ' + res.statusCode);
console.log('HEADERS: ' + JSON.stringify(res.headers));
var data = '';
res.on('data', function (chunk) {
data += chunk;  
});
res.on('end', function (chunk) {
var data2 = JSON.parse(data);
console.log(data2.app_id);
});
});

Server Code:

app = connect();
app.use(connect.compress(console.log("compressed data")))
app.use(connectDomain())
.use(connect.query())
.use(connectRoute(function (router) {

router.get('/', function (req, res) {
            var acceptEncoding = req.headers['accept-encoding'];
            
              if (acceptEncoding.match(/\bdeflate\b/)) {
                    res.setHeader('content-encoding', 'deflate');
              } else if (acceptEncoding.match(/\bgzip\b/)) {
                    res.setHeader('content-encoding', 'gzip');
              }
            console.log(res._headers);  
            res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
            res.end('{"app_id": "A3000990"}');
            })
            }))
            
.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
    res.end(err.message);
  });

http.createServer(app).listen(2080);

We can't control the browser. It either sends the Accept-encoding: gzip, deflate header or it doesn't. So can we get compress data using connect.compress()?

Answer 1

There's a couple of issues here:

• you're setting Content-Encoding headers in the server, but also use connect.compress which will also set that header. That could create conflicts, so don't add those headers yourself and let connect.compress handle all the compression;
• you don't actually send the HTTP request in your client, add req.end() to it;
• there's no attempt to decompress the compressed data in your client; how to do that can be found here;