function parse_response($response){
   /*
   ***original code extracted from examples at
   ***http://www.webreference.com/programming
                           /php/cookbook/chap11/1/3.html

   ***returns an array in the following format which varies depending on              
      headers returned  

       [0] => the HTTP error or response code such as 404
       [1] => Array
       (
           [Server] => Microsoft-IIS/5.0
           [Date] => Wed, 28 Apr 2004 23:29:20 GMT
           [X-Powered-By] => ASP.NET
           [Connection] => close
           [Set-Cookie] => COOKIESTUFF
           [Expires] => Thu, 01 Dec 1994 16:00:00 GMT
           [Content-Type] => text/html
           [Content-Length] => 4040
       )
       [2] => Response body (string)
*/

   list($response_headers,$response_body) = explode("\r\n\r\n",$response,2);
   $response_header_lines = explode("\r\n",$response_headers);

   // first line of headers is the HTTP response code
   $http_response_line = array_shift($response_header_lines);
   if (preg_match('@^HTTP/[0-9]\.[0-9] ([0-9]{3})@',$http_response_line,
                   $matches)) {
       $response_code = $matches[1];
   }

   // put the rest of the headers in an array
   $response_header_array = array();
   foreach ($response_header_lines as $header_line) {
       list($header,$value) = explode(': ',$header_line,2);
       $response_header_array[$header] = $value;
   }

   return array($response_code,$response_header_array,$response_body);
}