Note sure exaclty how I would use it? Can you explain more please

Also, assuming your server host didn't disable this feature (enabled by default) for security reasons (allow_url_fopen) you can also get the contents of a file via URL with ...

file (returns file as array, split on linebreaks)
fopen (opens read/write/append file-handle)
file_get_contents (returns whole file as string)

Write ups of these functions
file -- http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.file.php
fopen --- http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.fopen.php
file_get_contents -- http://us.php.net/manual/en/function...t-contents.php
allow_url_fopen -- http://us2.php.net/manual/en/filesys...llow-url-fopen

Just thought you might like to know

PHP Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)

<?php
$word = 'search'; // found
//$word = 'phat'; // not found
$file = file_get_contents( 'http://www.google.com' );
if ( preg_match( "/$word/i", $file ) ) {
  print "word: $word";
} else {
  print "phat";
}
?>

<?php $word = 'search'; // found //$word = 'phat'; // not found $file = file_get_contents( 'http://www.google.com' ); if ( preg_match( "/$word/i", $file ) ) { print "word: $word"; } else { print "phat"; } ?>

Even better, this will make my job 10 times easier.

Ya, I guess Curl is a bit overkill for what you want to do with it, but it is a good thing to learn though as the options are limitless.
If you ever decide to play with it, here is a pretty good tutorial:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/ia...n20050525.php3