is CURL right for SSL post to payment processing Authenticate.net

I'm wondering if anyone has experience using CURL and could advise if it's the best direction for creating a SSL to a payment processing service. I'm trying to connect an existing PHP form to a payment processing service called Authorize.net. Using there direct response method requires a Secure Socket which a thought meant to send from a secure form to their secure script which didn't work. Here's what I got from their tech support. "The problem is that you can't send an HTML form POST when using Direct Response. You must write a script that creates an SSL connection directly with our server (port 443) and send the information to us through that connection. I do not know if this is possible through PHP but usually this is done with PERL, CGI, or ColdFusion. Please refer to the Developer's guide for more information: https://secure.authorize.net/docs Thank you for contacting our customer service group." I found some info about CURL, http://curl.haxx.se/, and it seems like it might do the trick. I was wondering if anyone has experience with this a can confirm that this is the best approach or give me some other direction. Thanks, Tom >>.>>.>>>.>>>>>.>>>>>>>>>.>>>>>>>> Tom Beidler Orbit Tech Services 805.682.8972 (phone) 805.682.5833 (fax) tom@orbittechservices.com http://www.orbittechservices.com/ >>.>>.>>>.>>>>>.>>>>>>>>>.>>>>>>>>