Content-Encoding problem with external application

All,

I have a problem using Content-Encoding

What I'm trying to do:
I want to serve a document (HTML, DOC PDF...) (via HTTP/1.1) using a
compression mechanism if the browser supports it.

What I'm doing:
I check in the request (Accept-Encoding) if the browser support
compression . If it supports I send back a compressed version of the
requested file.
Content-Type: <type>			;(e.g.text/html, application/msword,
application/pdf)
Content-Length: <length>		
Content-Encoding: <encoding>		;(e.g. gzip)

The result:
When sending back compressed html, gif, jpeg files the mechanism works
just fine (i.e. file uncompressed and loaded in the browser)
When sending back compressed doc or pdf files the external application
(msword or acrobat reader) is launched but fails to load the document or
load the doument but display the compressed content (the behavior is
browser specific; I don't get the same behavior with Netscape Navigator
and  MS Internet Explorer).

Reading chapter 7.2.1 in RFC 2068:
	entity-body := Content-Encoding(Content-Type(data))

further 14.12 "...and thus what decoding mechanisms MUST be applied in
order to obtain the media-type referenced by the Content-type header
field. ..."

I don't understand why the mechanism is not working for all media-types.

Any idea is welcome.

Kind regards, and thanks


Frederic Lapierre

AUCS Communication Services
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Email:	Frederic.Lapierre@aucs-europe.com
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Received on Tuesday, 23 November 1999 04:53:10 UTC