7.5 KiB
compression
Node.js compression middleware.
The following compression codings are supported:
- deflate
- gzip
Install
This is a Node.js module
available through the npm registry.
Installation is done using the npm install
command:
$ npm install compression
API
var compression = require('compression')
compression(options)
Returns the compression middleware using the given
options
. The middleware will attempt to compress response
bodies for all request that traverse through the middleware, based on
the given options
.
This middleware will never compress responses that include a
Cache-Control
header with the no-transform
directive, as compressing will transform the body.
Options
compression()
accepts these properties in the options
object. In addition to those listed below, zlib options may be passed in
to the options object.
chunkSize
The default value is zlib.Z_DEFAULT_CHUNK
, or
16384
.
See Node.js documentation regarding the usage.
filter
A function to decide if the response should be considered for
compression. This function is called as filter(req, res)
and is expected to return true
to consider the response for
compression, or false
to not compress the response.
The default filter function uses the compressible
module to determine if res.getHeader('Content-Type')
is
compressible.
level
The level of zlib compression to apply to responses. A higher level will result in better compression, but will take longer to complete. A lower level will result in less compression, but will be much faster.
This is an integer in the range of 0
(no compression) to
9
(maximum compression). The special value -1
can be used to mean the “default compression level”, which is a default
compromise between speed and compression (currently equivalent to level
6).
-1
Default compression level (alsozlib.Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION
).0
No compression (alsozlib.Z_NO_COMPRESSION
).1
Fastest compression (alsozlib.Z_BEST_SPEED
).2
3
4
5
6
(currently whatzlib.Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION
points to).7
8
9
Best compression (alsozlib.Z_BEST_COMPRESSION
).
The default value is zlib.Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION
, or
-1
.
Note in the list above, zlib
is from
zlib = require('zlib')
.
memLevel
This specifies how much memory should be allocated for the internal
compression state and is an integer in the range of 1
(minimum level) and 9
(maximum level).
The default value is zlib.Z_DEFAULT_MEMLEVEL
, or
8
.
See Node.js documentation regarding the usage.
strategy
This is used to tune the compression algorithm. This value only affects the compression ratio, not the correctness of the compressed output, even if it is not set appropriately.
zlib.Z_DEFAULT_STRATEGY
Use for normal data.zlib.Z_FILTERED
Use for data produced by a filter (or predictor). Filtered data consists mostly of small values with a somewhat random distribution. In this case, the compression algorithm is tuned to compress them better. The effect is to force more Huffman coding and less string matching; it is somewhat intermediate betweenzlib.Z_DEFAULT_STRATEGY
andzlib.Z_HUFFMAN_ONLY
.zlib.Z_FIXED
Use to prevent the use of dynamic Huffman codes, allowing for a simpler decoder for special applications.zlib.Z_HUFFMAN_ONLY
Use to force Huffman encoding only (no string match).zlib.Z_RLE
Use to limit match distances to one (run-length encoding). This is designed to be almost as fast aszlib.Z_HUFFMAN_ONLY
, but give better compression for PNG image data.
Note in the list above, zlib
is from
zlib = require('zlib')
.
threshold
The byte threshold for the response body size before compression is
considered for the response, defaults to 1kb
. This is a
number of bytes or any string accepted by the bytes module.
Note this is only an advisory setting; if the
response size cannot be determined at the time the response headers are
written, then it is assumed the response is over the threshold.
To guarantee the response size can be determined, be sure set a
Content-Length
response header.
windowBits
The default value is zlib.Z_DEFAULT_WINDOWBITS
, or
15
.
See Node.js documentation regarding the usage.
.filter
The default filter
function. This is used to construct a
custom filter function that is an extension of the default function.
var compression = require('compression')
var express = require('express')
var app = express()
.use(compression({ filter: shouldCompress }))
app
function shouldCompress (req, res) {
if (req.headers['x-no-compression']) {
// don't compress responses with this request header
return false
}
// fallback to standard filter function
return compression.filter(req, res)
}
res.flush
This module adds a res.flush()
method to force the
partially-compressed response to be flushed to the client.
Examples
express/connect
When using this module with express or connect, simply
app.use
the module as high as you like. Requests that pass
through the middleware will be compressed.
var compression = require('compression')
var express = require('express')
var app = express()
// compress all responses
.use(compression())
app
// add all routes
Server-Sent Events
Because of the nature of compression this module does not work out of the box with server-sent events. To compress content, a window of the output needs to be buffered up in order to get good compression. Typically when using server-sent events, there are certain block of data that need to reach the client.
You can achieve this by calling res.flush()
when you
need the data written to actually make it to the client.
var compression = require('compression')
var express = require('express')
var app = express()
// compress responses
.use(compression())
app
// server-sent event stream
.get('/events', function (req, res) {
app.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/event-stream')
res.setHeader('Cache-Control', 'no-cache')
res
// send a ping approx every 2 seconds
var timer = setInterval(function () {
.write('data: ping\n\n')
res
// !!! this is the important part
.flush()
res, 2000)
}
.on('close', function () {
resclearInterval(timer)
}) })