Handling gzip responses in Ruby Net::HTTP library

gzip_net_http.rb

# from http://pushandpop.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/handling-gzip-responses-in-ruby-nethttp.html
# i wanted syntax highlighting

require 'net/http'

debug = Proc.new{|msg| STDERR.puts "[#{Time.now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')}] #{msg}" }

page = nil
http = Net::HTTP.new( "www.google.com", 80 )
req = Net::HTTP::Get.new( "/search?num=20&hl=en&noj=1&q=test&btnG=Search", { "Accept-Encoding" => "gzip", "User-Agent" => "gzip" } )
debug.call( "Performing HTTP GET request for (#{req.path})." )
res = http.request( req )      
debug.call( "Received HTTP Response Code (#{res.code})" )
case res
  when Net::HTTPSuccess then  
    begin
      if res.header[ 'Content-Encoding' ].eql?( 'gzip' ) then
        debug.call( "Performing gzip decompression for response body." ) 
        sio = StringIO.new( res.body )
        gz = Zlib::GzipReader.new( sio )
        page = gz.read()      
        debug.call( "Finished decompressing gzipped response body." ) 
      else
        debug.call( "Page is not compressed. Using text response body. " )         
        page = res.body
      end
    rescue Exception
      debug.call( "Error occurred (#{$!.message})" )
      # handle errors
      raise $!.message
    end
end

puts page

Have in mind that Net::HTTP also supports compression out of the box.