--- httplib.py	Tue Jul 27 20:49:54 2004
+++ httplib.py.fixed	Tue Jul 27 20:06:40 2004
@@ -728,15 +728,17 @@
             self._send_request(method, url, body, headers)
 
     def _send_request(self, method, url, body, headers):
-        # If headers already contains a host header, then define the
-        # optional skip_host argument to putrequest().  The check is
-        # harder because field names are case insensitive.
-        if 'host' in [k.lower() for k in headers]:
-            self.putrequest(method, url, skip_host=1)
-        else:
-            self.putrequest(method, url)
+        # honour explicitly requested Host: and Accept-Encoding headers
+        header_names = [k.lower() for k in headers]
+        skips = {}
+        if 'host' in header_names:
+            skips['skip_host'] = 1
+        if 'accept-encoding' in header_names:
+            skips['skip_accept_encoding'] = 1
 
-        if body:
+        self.putrequest(method, url, **skips)
+
+        if body and ('content-length' not in header_names):
             self.putheader('Content-Length', str(len(body)))
         for hdr, value in headers.iteritems():
             self.putheader(hdr, value)