Is it possible to use Content-Encoding: gzip in a HTTP POST request?

Question

I'm trying to upload some files with compression to a server. The files will be fairly large and the server is a standard HTTP server where the interface defines that they're not compressed. Is it possible to use something like Content-Encoding to indicate that the upload request is compressed, much like it is used for downstream compression?

Answer 1

Apache supports it with the mod_deflate module but I does not look a common web server feature. If you have access to the server you can enable this module or rewrite the server side code to handle your compressed data (e.g. a special servlet/php which call the original servlet/php with the decompressed data).