HTTP Authentication

Guys, I have to access a WS that uses HTTP auth directly with PHP. I've tried using the usual http://user:pw@example.com/ but I couldn't get it working. I believe it has something to do with the password containing a # (can't change it) and the browser thinks it's an achor or something. All I've seen were scripts to implement HTTP Auth in PHP, nothing about actually logging in with PHP. Is it possible to send the authentication headers the first time I access the link? I could send all necessary headers to the page I'm trying to access and retrieve it's content at once. Thanks, -- Thiago Henrique Pojda