--- a/Http.inc	Thu Oct 18 16:44:48 2012 +0200
+++ b/Http.inc	Thu Oct 18 17:33:34 2012 +0200
@@ -3,12 +3,74 @@
 
 /// @cond
 $baseDir = dirname(__FILE__);
-
 $cache = ScriptIncludeCache::instance(__FILE__);
 /// @endcond
 
+/**
+ * Thrown if a request has gone bad
+ */
+class RequestException extends RuntimeException
+{
+  private $_info;
+
+  /**
+   * Constructs a RequestException
+   *
+   * @param $info an info array as defined in http_get, if a key with
+   * name error exist, this will be the error text for the
+   * RuntimeException
+   */
+  function __construct($info)
+  {
+    $this->_info = $info;
+    if (array_key_exists('error', $info)) {
+      parent::__construct($info['error']);
+    }
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Get the info object associated with this RequestException
+   *
+   * @return $info an info array as defined in http_get
+   */
+  function info()
+  {
+    return $this->_info;
+  }
+}
+
+/**
+ * Http contains a set of functions for retrieving http information
+ */
 class Http
 {
+  /**
+   * Gets the content of a page
+   *
+   * This mimics the file_content with a uri parameter which is often
+   * disabled due to security reasons
+   *
+   * @param $uri The uri to fetch
+   */
+  static function get_uri_contents($uri)
+  {
+    $crl = curl_init();
+    $timeout = 5;
+
+    curl_setopt ($crl, CURLOPT_URL, $uri);
+    curl_setopt ($crl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
+    curl_setopt ($crl, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $timeout);
+    $ret = curl_exec($crl);
+    curl_close($crl);
+    return $ret;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Splits an http header response into an associative array
+   *
+   * @param $response The headers to parse
+   * @return an Associative array, the key '' refers to the HTTP status header
+   */
   static function headersToArray($response)
   {
     $headers = array();
@@ -30,6 +92,7 @@
    * Queries a URL for headers
    *
    * @param $url the url to query
+   * @param $timeout float number of seconds to wait before timeout
    * @return an associative array of all headers returned
    */
   static function getHeaders($url, $timeout = 1)
@@ -43,7 +106,15 @@
     return self::headersToArray($response);
   }
 
-  static function postHeaders($url, $params, $timeout = 1)
+  /**
+   * Performs a post to an URI for headers
+   *
+   * @param $uri the uri to query
+   * @param $params an associative array of params to post
+   * @param $timeout float number of seconds to wait before timeout
+   * @return an associative array of all headers returned
+   */
+  static function postHeaders($uri, $params, $timeout = 1)
   {
     $crl = curl_init();
 
@@ -57,7 +128,7 @@
     //being reordered.
     $process = proc_open('tac | tac', $descriptorspec, $pipes);
 
-    curl_setopt ($crl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
+    curl_setopt ($crl, CURLOPT_URL, $uri);
     curl_setopt ($crl, CURLOPT_WRITEHEADER, $pipes[0]);
     curl_setopt ($crl, CURLOPT_NOBODY, true);
     curl_setopt ($crl, CURLOPT_POST, true);