public static String compress(String str) throws IOException {
	    if (str == null || str.length() == 0) {
	      return str;
	    }
	    ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
	    GZIPOutputStream gzip = new GZIPOutputStream(out);
	    gzip.write(str.getBytes());
	    gzip.close();
	    return out.toString("ISO-8859-1");
	  }