ReadAsByteArrayAsync returns unreadable

Question

I'm writting application in .NET, where I need to get data from some api.

I tried to use different reading method e.g ReadAsStringAsync(), I tried to convert them in UTF-8, I set mediaType text/plain, I tried to convert to JSON, but it raised an error during parsing.

HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Clear();
byte[] responded;
HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(path);
response.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/json");
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
    response.Content.ReadAsByteArrayAsync().Wait();
    responded =  response.Content.ReadAsByteArrayAsync().Result;
    var responseString = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(responded, 0, responded.Length);
    Console.WriteLine("\n " +responseString);
}

I get respond:

?0E?%?}S??WDJpq?%)X??}???s????A???BK?X?}?k

but it's not what I expect:

{"items:[{"has_synonyms":true,"is_moderator_only":false,"is_required":false,"count":9452,"name":"tags"}],"has_more":false,"quota_max":300,"quota_remaining":296}

Answer 1

I didn't realize, that response is in gzip format.. I made changes:

Stream responded;
HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(new Uri(path));
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
        response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Wait();
        responded = response.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync().Result;
        Stream decompressed = new GZipStream(responded, CompressionMode.Decompress);
        StreamReader objReader = new StreamReader(decompressed, Encoding.UTF8);
        string sLine;
        sLine = objReader.ReadToEnd();
}

and it works properly.