diff -ur libxml2-2.4.20/xmlIO.c libxml2-2.4.20-/xmlIO.c
--- libxml2-2.4.20/xmlIO.c	Wed Mar 27 04:35:12 2002
+++ libxml2-2.4.20-/xmlIO.c	Thu May 23 20:35:12 2002
@@ -465,8 +465,35 @@
 
     if (path == NULL)
 	return(NULL);
-    if (!xmlCheckFilename(path))
-        return(NULL);
+	
+    if (!xmlCheckFilename(path)) {
+        /* If we cannot open `foo.xml', we try `foo.xml.gz'. However we i
+	 * append .gz only if filename doesn't alreay end with .gz. */
+        if (strlen(path) < 3 || strcmp(path + strlen(path) - 3, ".gz") != 0) {
+            char *gz_filename = xmlMalloc(strlen(path) + 4);
+
+	    if (gz_filename == NULL) {
+	        xmlGenericError(xmlGenericErrorContext,
+			        "xmlGzfileOpen:  %s\n",
+			        "Failure allocating buffer for filename.");
+	        return NULL;
+	     }
+	
+             strcpy(gz_filename, path);
+	     strcat(gz_filename, ".gz");
+
+	     fd = NULL;
+	     
+	     if (xmlCheckFilename(gz_filename))
+		fd = gzopen(gz_filename, "rb");
+	         
+	     xmlFree(gz_filename);
+	     
+             return((void *) fd);
+	} else {
+	    return NULL;
+	}
+    }
 
     fd = gzopen(path, "rb");
     return((void *) fd);