[Mod_gzip] Processing gzip'ed POST data

[mod_gzip@lists.over.net]

Hi Igor,


> I am implementing a SOAP web service that uses HTTP POST to send a
request.

so you have control over the server application.

But who is issuing this POST request?
Is this simply any standard browser, or is it something you have
under your control as well (like, say, a JAVA applet)?

> Whereas it is trivial to get a GZIP-encoded response back, I wasn?t able
> to find any references on how, or whether it is possible at all to have
> GZIP?ed POST data received and processed by mod_gzip.

I don't have anything really valuable to add to Kevins great
response about that.

Usually, HTTP responses are at least one magnitude bigger than
requests, thus an compression input filter would make sense only
in very specific scenarios (like yours).
Which then might be an implication to doublecheck whether HTTP
is actually the protocol of your choice ... again, this would
depend on how much control you have about the client side.
For a high-performance program-to-program interface HTTP may
simply contain too much overhead, and the stateless connection
character might prove to be a downside as well.

>  So, if this were possible, how would you configure mod_gzip

As stated by Kevin, mod_gzip (and other output filters like
mod_deflate) won't be of any use for you.

But you may want to learn from their principle of operation.
Whatever your SOAP application is, it has control about how to
handle any incoming data, which includes using any decompression
library of your choice (like zlib) and decompress the POST data
on its own.
The trick might rather be to make your client apply the compres-
sion in the first place - hence I asked about what this client
is supposed to be and how much control you have there.

Regards, Michael