Question

I believe this would be a more CPU friendly method, can it be implemented with php ?, instead of gzipping content for every request, I compress the files once and serve those instead =).

Answer 1

Yes, this is quite easy to do with Apache.

Store the uncompressed and compressed files side by side. E.g.:

\-htdocs
  |-index.php
  |-javascript.js
  \-javascript.js.gz

Enable content negotiation in Apache. Use:

Options +MultiViews

Now when “/javascript” is requested, Apache will serve the gzipped version if the client declares it accepts it (through Accept-encoding).

Example of two HTTP requests (some headers omitted):

Client claims to accept gzip

GET /EP/Exames/2006-2007/exame2B HTTP/1.1
Host: lebm.geleia.net
Accept-Encoding: gzip, identity

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:22:59 GMT
Content-Location: exame2B.nb.gz
Vary: negotiate,accept-encoding
TCN: choice
Last-Modified: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:33:53 GMT
ETag: "0-c9d-428a84de03a40;48db6d490abee"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 3229
Content-Type: application/mathematica
Content-Encoding: gzip

‹áüÅE
(response continues)

Client does not claim to accept gzip

GET /EP/Exames/2006-2007/exame2B HTTP/1.1
Host: lebm.geleia.net
Accept-Encoding: identity

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:23:14 GMT
Content-Location: exame2B.nb
Vary: negotiate,accept-encoding
TCN: choice
Last-Modified: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:33:53 GMT
ETag: "0-257f-428a84de03a40;48db6d490abee"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 9599
Content-Type: application/mathematica

(************** Content-type: application/mathematica **************
CreatedBy='Mathematica 5.2'
(response continues)

See a more complete version here http://pastebin.com/TAwxpngX