Rails - Feb 2006 - problem serving files which start with newlines

I''m working on a rails app that stores files in a database and allows 
users do download them again. But when a file starts with newlines they 
get lost in the process and the browser marks the download as failed 
because the received filesize is smaller then the expected filesize (the 
difference is exactly the newlines missing).

To reproduce this place something like this an a controller
  def foo
    send_data "\nline1\nline2|"
  end
and the downloaded file will contain only "line1\nline2|".

I think I tracked the problem down to webrick_server.rb around line 115. 
A StringIO object is created, filled with the data and then this is 
split into header and body by calling
''extract_header_and_body''. Before
this call the newlines are still there and after it they are missing. 
''extract_header_and_body'' uses
''*data.split(/^[\xd\xa]+/on, 2)'' to split
up header and body and that regular expression seems to swallow not only 
the one newline separating header and body but also the newlines the 
body containing the file data is starting with. I put the relevant code 
below, hopefully making clear what I mean.
1. Having started with Rails and Ruby only two days ago, I''m not that 
good with the syntax and all, so is my analyse correct or did I get 
something wrong?
2. Is ''send_data'' the proper way of doing what I want?
(I''m quite sure
it is, but better be save (and ask) than sorry.)
3. How can I avoid/work around this?
4. Since this is in webrick_server.rb am I right to assume that it''s a 
problem in the webrick webserver and that when using e.g. apache this 
will go away?


def handle_dispatch(req, res, origin = nil) #:nodoc:
    data = StringIO.new
    Dispatcher.dispatch(
      CGI.new("query", create_env_table(req, origin), 
StringIO.new(req.body || "")),
      ActionController::CgiRequest::DEFAULT_SESSION_OPTIONS,
      data
    )

    print data.string					<- linefeeds still there
    header, body = extract_header_and_body(data)
    print body						<- linefeeds gone
    [...]
  end
[...]
  def extract_header_and_body(data)
    data.rewind
    data = data.read

    raw_header, body = *data.split(/^[\xd\xa]+/on, 2)   <- probably the 
problem
    header = WEBrick::HTTPUtils::parse_header(raw_header)

    return header, body
  end

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