Password protected page, how to access it with PHP?

Question

Say I have a page which is password protected with cPanel's directory password type of thing (htaccess), how could I access this page using PHP? So the php script would:

1. Go to the password protected URL
2. Enter the username
3. Enter the password
4. Return true if it worked, false if it didnt

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Check out cURL.

You can set the connection options for CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH and pass the credentials. There's actually a user comment containing code that should help you get started with Basic Auth.