Compress and Download Query Results Over Web

I am a programmer who is new to Oracle and need alittle advice to complete the basics of a PL/SQL application I am developing. The parameters to build a query are gathered from input from a user via a web browser. I have finally got this working and now I need to serve up the data to the user.
I can display the results of a query in an HTML table using the HTP package.

The problem:
Some queries can result in large amounts of data. I need to compress the results of the query (in a comma delimited format) and allow the user to download this compressed data.

I figured I could "spool" the results to a flat file, call some compression routine, delete the uncompressed file, download the compressed file, then delete the compressed file.

Anyone have any suggestions on other ways (easier) to accomplish this?
Speak slow as I am a newbie to PL/SQL.

TIA Received on Fri Feb 18 2000 - 19:09:27 CST