Response

HTTP Transfer-Encoding Header

Specifies the transfer encoding applied to the message body. Chunked encoding is used when the response size is not known in advance.

Purpose

Enables streaming of response data without knowing the total size beforehand, using chunked transfer encoding.

Transfer-Encoding: chunked Transfer-Encoding: gzip, chunked Transfer-Encoding: identity

Code Examples

See how to use the Transfer-Encoding header in different tools and languages.

curl -I https://api.example.com/stream
# Transfer-Encoding: chunked
# Note: No Content-Length header when using chunked

Related Headers

Content-Length

Indicates the size of the response body in bytes. Helps the client know how much data to expect and when the response is complete.

Content-Encoding

Indicates which compression algorithm was applied to the response body. The client must use the same algorithm to decompress the data.

Connection

Controls whether the network connection stays open after the current transaction. HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 prohibit using this header for connection management.

Test Your APIs

API Response Time Checker

Test your APIs and inspect response headers in real-time

HTTP Headers Reference

Complete reference of all HTTP request and response headers

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