ContentType HTTP header is missing in Server response

Question

I have a ASP.NET MVC web action which returns a simple zip file. The Responce.ContentType property is manually set to "text/xml; charset=utf-8; gzip". This header value is set before writing response content to the output stream. Web project is hosted on Windows Azure hosting. The problem is that sometimes server returns response with missing ContentType header field, this causes issues on the client side. Having no idea what could be the reason of it. When I run same web project locally - everything works fine, ContentType field has proper value. Sample web action code:

public void GetData()
{
            Response.ContentType = "text/xml; charset=utf-8; gzip";
            XDocument xml = new XDocument(...);//some large XML file
            byte[] byteData = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xml.ToString());
            Stream outputStream = Response.OutputStream;
            GZipStream compressedzipStream = new GZipStream(outputStream, CompressionMode.Compress);
            compressedzipStream.Write(byteData, 0, byteData.Length);
            compressedzipStream.Close();
}

Any help would be much appreciated.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:48:00Z

1

You could write a custom action result:

public class CompressedXDocumentResult : FileResult
{
    private readonly XDocument _xdoc;
    public CompressedXDocumentResult(XDocument xdoc)
        : base("text/xml; charset=utf-8; gzip")
    {
        _xdoc = xdoc;
    }

    protected override void WriteFile(HttpResponseBase response)
    {
        using (var gzip = new GZipStream(response.OutputStream, CompressionMode.Compress))
        {
            var buffer = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(_xdoc.ToString());
            gzip.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
        }
    }
}

and then:

public ActionResult GetData()
{
    XDocument xml = ...
    return new CompressedXDocumentResult(xml);
}

Also note that text/xml; charset=utf-8; gzip is not a standard HTTP Content-Type header. So unless you write some custom client that will understand it, it is unlikely that any standard browser will be able to parse it.

If you wanted to indicate that the response is compressed you'd better use the Content-Encoding header. You could either activate compression for dynamic contents directly at IIS level and don't bother in your code or if you don't have access to IIS you could simply write a custom action filter:

[OutputCompress]
public ActionResult GetData()
{
    XDocument xml = ...
    byte[] buffer = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xml.ToString());
    return File(buffer, "text/xml; charset=utf-8");
}

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:48

CommunityBot

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answered Feb 19, 2012 at 10:38

Darin Dimitrov

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2 Comments

Semen Shekhovtsov Over a year ago

I have some logic in the client side which depends on the ContentType value. Thanks for your suggestion I'll try it.

Darin Dimitrov Over a year ago

@Sam.Shekhovtsov, OK. In this case it makes sense indeed. But why not stick with the standard HTTP protocol which already provides a mechanism for indicating compressed response?

Sean · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-19 10:31:55Z

0

try this:

Response.Clear();    
Response.ContentType = "text/xml; charset=utf-8; gzip";

answered Feb 19, 2012 at 10:31

Sean

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