[Catalyst] Extra characters inserted into PDF output

[Dr. Jennifer Nussbaum]

--- On Tue, 12/2/08, Steve Sabljak <steve at sabljak.org> wrote:

> From: Steve Sabljak <steve at sabljak.org>
> Subject: Re: [Catalyst] Extra characters inserted into PDF output
> To: "The elegant MVC web framework" <catalyst at lists.scsys.co.uk>
> Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 6:30 PM
> On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 5:25 AM, Dr. Jennifer Nussbaum
> <bg271828 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > --- On Tue, 12/2/08, Robin Berjon
> <robin at berjon.com> wrote:
> >
> >> From: Robin Berjon <robin at berjon.com>
> >> Subject: Re: [Catalyst] Extra characters inserted
> into PDF output
> >> To: bg271828 at yahoo.com, "The elegant MVC web
> framework" <catalyst at lists.scsys.co.uk>
> >> Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 8:57 AM
> >> On Dec 2, 2008, at 17:02 , Dr. Jennifer Nussbaum
> wrote:
> >> > My PDF files are being uploaded and saved in
> the
> >> database apparently correctly. Then what seems to
> be
> >> happening is that somewhere in the binary stream
> of PDF,
> >> there is a (random) sequence of "<!",
> and
> >> somewhere later there is a ">". And
> something
> >> is inserting a "--" before the
> ">".
> >> >
> >> > My debugging statements show that Catalyst is
> >> outputting the correct size of the file, which
> suggests that
> >> the insertion is happening elsewhere.
> >>
> >> The one thing you're not saying is under what
> Catalyst
> >> is running when it's producing that. Are you
> running
> >> FastCGI? Mod_perl? Stand-alone development server?
> >
> > This happens both under the standalone server and
> under Apache/mod_perl.
> >
> >> If it happens in all of those then the bug is
> probably in
> >> your code (though after your debugging
> statements).
> >
> > Ive shown all the code for the view, so you can see
> anything that happens after the debugging....
> >
> >> If the
> >> insertion is indeed happening outside that pretty
> much just
> >> leaves the Web server, or perhaps a proxy. Wild
> stab in the
> >> dark: do you happen to have SSI turned on?
> >
> > Yes, but only on the actual server. My dev box running
> the standalone server isnt doing any SSI's.
> >
> > This is baffling.
> >
> > Jen
> >
> 
> So, if you use (literally)
> 
> $c->res->output('XXXXX<!XXXXXX>XXXXX');
> 
> does it output 'XXXXX<!XXXXX-->XXXXX'?
> (you might want to change the content-type to text/plain
> for this test
> if testing with a browser)

I dont know if this was a rhetorical question designed to show how stupid i am, or a real question, but the answer is "yes". Or, rather, if I change my output routine to

$c->res->output('XXXXX<!XXXXXX>XXXXX'); $c->res->content_type('text/plain');

Then what i get in my browser is:

XXXXX<!--XXXXXX-->XXXXX

Where does this leave me? WHY is this happening?

Jen