Http/2 HttpClient and HPACK For APNs

Question

I am writing code to send notifications to the Apple push notification servers (APNs). It says in the documents that it requires HTTP/ HPACK header compression. I found the following code to use HTTP/2 with C# httpclient:

public class Http2CustomHandler : WinHttpHandler
{
    protected override Task<HttpResponseMessage> SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, System.Threading.CancellationToken cancellationToken)
    {
        request.Version = new Version("2.0");
        return base.SendAsync(request, cancellationToken);
    }
}

using (var httpClient = new HttpClient(new Http2CustomHandler()))
{

}

Does that compress the headers that I will add to the HttpClient automatically or should I add the header data some other way?

Riker

Did you ever figure out the answer? Or did you get any off this working? Thanks! – Menadione

Yes, I found out that it does actually compress the headers, nothing additional required. – Riker

Thanks for responding, that’s excellent to hear! I am eager to find out if you were able to get a successful iOS notification sent this way, as I have long been hoping the new http2 work in .net could help solve this. If you would be willing to share a sample or just some snippets demonstrating some core concepts, I would be glad to make a new question and award it a nice bounty... – Menadione

I am also eager to hear if you managed to solve it! Struggling with this right now and we are getting an HttpRequestException "Error while copying content to a stream." Inner Exception InnerException = {"Error 12152 calling WinHttpWriteData, 'The server returned an invalid or unrecognized response'."} – Camfort

Answer 1

Yes it does compress the headers. You don't have to do anything extra.

Grandmamma