NAME

       CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING - enables automatic decompression of HTTP downloads

SYNOPSIS

       #include <curl/curl.h>

       CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING, char *enc);

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: identity, meaning  non-compressed,  deflate  which
       requests the server to compress its response using the zlib algorithm, gzip which requests
       the gzip algorithm and (since curl 7.57.0) br which is brotli.  Provide them in the string
       as a comma-separated list of accepted encodings, like:

         "br, gzip, deflate".

       Set  CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING(3)  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
       CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER(3)  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.

DEFAULT

       NULL

PROTOCOLS

       HTTP

EXAMPLE

       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);
       }

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.

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.

SEE ALSO

       CURLOPT_TRANSFER_ENCODING(3), CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER(3), CURLOPT_HTTP_CONTENT_DECODING(3),