In Python, how do I decode GZIP encoding?

Question

I downloaded a webpage in my python script. In most cases, this works fine.

However, this one had a response header: GZIP encoding, and when I tried to print the sou

Answer 1

I use something like that:

f = urllib2.urlopen(request)
data = f.read()
try:
    from cStringIO import StringIO
    from gzip import GzipFile
    data2 = GzipFile('', 'r', 0, StringIO(data)).read()
    data = data2
except:
    #print "decompress error %s" % err
    pass
return data

Answer 2

Similar to Shatu's answer for python3, but arranged a little differently:

import gzip

s = Request("https://someplace.com", None, headers)
r = urlopen(s, None, 180).read()
try: r = gzip.decompress(r)
except OSError: pass
result = json_load(r.decode())

This method allows for wrapping the gzip.decompress() in a try/except to capture and pass the OSError that results in situations where you may get mixed compressed and uncompressed data. Some small strings actually get bigger if they are encoded, so the plain data is sent instead.