HTTP Authentication thru PHP

hello all , I'm able to get successfully http authenticated from my php scripts Ex : $header = "POST /myscript.php HTTP/1.0\r\nAuthorization: Basic "; $header .= base64_encode("$username:$password")."\r\n"; $header .= "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n"; ........ $fp = fsockopen($IP, $PORT, $errno, $errstr); if ($fp) { fputs($fp, $header . $request); while (!feof($fp)) { $response .= fgets($fp, 128); } } But the above is not working when the $username contains a trailing semicolon or when the $password is starting with a semicolon, Ex: what if the $username ="chandu:" Is there any solution for this ? /Chandu