[thelist] Download box and 'text/plain'

[John.Brooking at sappi.com]

Hello, list,

   I've occasionally had a mysterious problem with CGI Perl scripting
wherein I call my script, and instead of the page output I expect, my
browser (IE 6, my company's standard) brings up a file download box with the
name of the Perl script in it, asking me if I'd like to open or save it. It
was happening today, and I think I've finally narrowed it down. I get this
when I attempt to output with "Content-Type: text/plain", instead of
"text/html". It's very consistent, and happens with both the CGI::header
function or if I just print the content-type line myself. "text/html" works
fine; In either case, I change the "html" to "plain", and I get the dialog
box.

   Could this be a security setting in IE? Or maybe a security setting
somewhere else in our system (such as a proxy)? I can't try it in other
browsers right now because I'm sending this from work...

   Obviously I can get around it by writing text/html, but I'm curious. If I
knew more about it, I'd submit a tip for it!

- John
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