Elimiating buffer size transferred from Apache over sockets

Hi,
I hope this is the correct newsgroup.
The problem I have is that I am using Apache to send data across the
network. The data sent is then read on a second computer using sockets.
However, this data contains a series of 3-digit hex numbers that represent
the count of characters to follow. Reading these chunks is degreading the
transfer.
Is there any settings that can be applied at either end to prevent these
counts being sent?

If it is of interest, the two computers are Alpha servers running
OpenVMS (7.1 & 7.3).
Hoping for some favourable replies,
Ian

"Ian Dean" <Ian.d.dean@baesystems.com> said:
> The problem I have is that I am using Apache to send data across the
>network. The data sent is then read on a second computer using sockets.
>However, this data contains a series of 3-digit hex numbers that represent
>the count of characters to follow. Reading these chunks is degreading the
>transfer.

Hmm.. I don't quite believe that the effect would be that big. If it was,
it surely would've been left out of HTTP 1.1 specification.

For the rationale to use the chunked enconding, please read first
http://www.apacheweek.com/features/http11 (or at least the chapter
about chunked encoding).

It could be that you could disable the chunked encoding by specifically
requesting a non-persistent connection from the server (I didn't test
this, though), by sending a 'Connection: close' header along with the
request. But then, this'll take away the benefit you get from persistent
connections (which, of course, might not apply to your situation).

> Is there any settings that can be applied at either end to prevent
>these counts being sent?

There appears also to be something called 'blowchunks' which will deny
such client requests where chunked encoding is explicitly requested.
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