docs/libcurl/opts/CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING.3

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.TH CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING 3 "August 27, 2018" "libcurl 7.61.1" "curl_easy_setopt options"

.SH NAME
CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING \- enables automatic decompression of HTTP downloads
.SH SYNOPSIS
#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING, char *enc);
.SH DESCRIPTION
Pass a char * argument specifying what encoding you'd like.

Sets the contents of the Accept-Encoding: header sent in an HTTP request, and
enables decoding of a response when a Content-Encoding: header is received.

libcurl potentially supports several different compressed encodings depending
on what support that has been built-in.

To aid applications not having to bother about what specific algorithms this
particular libcurl build supports, libcurl allows a zero-length string to be
set ("") to ask for an Accept-Encoding: header to be used that contains all
built-in supported encodings.

Alternatively, you can specify exactly the encoding or list of encodings you
want in the response. Four encodings are supported: \fIidentity\fP, meaning
non-compressed, \fIdeflate\fP which requests the server to compress its
response using the zlib algorithm, \fIgzip\fP which requests the gzip
algorithm and (since curl 7.57.0) \fIbr\fP which is brotli.  Provide them in
the string as a comma-separated list of accepted encodings, like:

  "br, gzip, deflate".

Set \fICURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING(3)\fP to NULL to explicitly disable it, which
makes libcurl not send an Accept-Encoding: header and not decompress received
contents automatically.

You can also opt to just include the Accept-Encoding: header in your request
with \fICURLOPT_HTTPHEADER(3)\fP but then there will be no automatic
decompressing when receiving data.

This is a request, not an order; the server may or may not do it.  This option
must be set (to any non-NULL value) or else any unsolicited encoding done by
the server is ignored.

Servers might respond with Content-Encoding even without getting a
Accept-Encoding: in the request. Servers might respond with a different
Content-Encoding than what was asked for in the request.

The Content-Length: servers send for a compressed response is supposed to
indicate the length of the compressed content so when auto decoding is enabled
it may not match the sum of bytes reported by the write callbacks (although,
sending the length of the non-compressed content is a common server mistake).

The application does not have to keep the string around after setting this
option.
.SH DEFAULT
NULL
.SH PROTOCOLS
HTTP
.SH EXAMPLE
.nf
CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
if(curl) {
  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "http://example.com");

  /* enable all supported built-in compressions */
  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING, "");

  /* Perform the request */
  curl_easy_perform(curl);
}
.fi
.SH AVAILABILITY
This option was called CURLOPT_ENCODING before 7.21.6

The specific libcurl you're using must have been built with zlib to be able to
decompress gzip and deflate responses and with the brotli library to
decompress brotli responses.
.SH RETURN VALUE
Returns CURLE_OK if the option is supported, CURLE_UNKNOWN_OPTION if not, or
CURLE_OUT_OF_MEMORY if there was insufficient heap space.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR CURLOPT_TRANSFER_ENCODING "(3), " CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER "(3), "
.BR CURLOPT_HTTP_CONTENT_DECODING "(3), "