Response body as a buffer instead of string

[pedrorfernandes]

At the moment response bodies are parsed as a string:

addBody (data) {
    const req = this.peek()
    if (req) {
      req.body += data
    }
  }

The issue with this is for example, if responses are gziped or if they have special characters, e.g: ’ –, then the response will be broken because special character information is lost when converting to a string.

However, verifyBody(), expectBody() and onResponse() all offer the body as string, how should we deal with this change?

• Cause a breaking change, forcing users to migrate to a Buffer instead of a string
  • verifyBody(), expectBody() would compare buffers instead of strings
• Convert the body to a string before calling verifyBody(), expectBody() and onResponse(), and offer BodyBuffer as a new parameter
• Other possibilities?

[mcollina]

Strings are significantly faster than buffers: we'd have to use a bl to manipulate the them.

I'm ok with the breaking change, I think it's the safest bet.

[vidhan63-soe]

Converting the body to a string before comparison offers the advantage of resolving special character and encoding concerns, all while retaining the familiarity of string representation. However, this approach might not be optimal for handling large data due to potential memory inefficiency and the possibility of encountering parsing issues.