Viewing an HTTP request/response details

According to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol specification, every HTTP request and response consists of a header followed optionally by an empty line and some data (content).

The requested web pages, images, scripts, files etc. are returned as a text or binary data in the HTTP content. Some web servers may compress the data in the HTTP content in order to reduce the downloading time and to save the network traffic (HTTP Debugger will automatically process chunked or gzip encodings).

The HTTP header provides important information about how to process the content, the HTTP method and version, requested resource name, returned error code, etc.

If you want to view the header/content of a particular HTTP request/response, select it in the program main screen, then click on 'Request Details' or on 'Response Details' at the bottom of the window.

If the selected HTTP request/response contains an HTML/XML web page, Java/VB script, RSS feed, or any other kind of textual data then it will be shown just after the HTTP header. Images, flash movies and any other kind of binary files cannot be shown on this screen and will be replaced with the line: 'The content is not viewable (binary data).' You can save the binary HTTP content data to the disk and analyze it in an appropriate program.

Web pages, images, flash movies and RSS feeds can be viewed directly in the HTTP Debugger; on the Preview screen.


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