// returns a String containing the contents of a URL
function get_contents($url, $post="") { 
	$ch = curl_init();
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
	if (!empty($post)) {
		curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST,1);
		curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post);
	}
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); 
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "");
	$string = curl_exec($ch) or die(curl_error());
	curl_close($ch);
	return $string;   
}