[OffTopic] POST variables without name -- is it possible to handle them?

Hi, this is massively un-pearish but very well within the realm of experienced programmer-lore, so maybe someone has the authoritative answer to this. A client tries to send us XML data using his VB library via POST. the request comes like this: <root><node1>...</node1> ..... blah blah </root>. so it's well-formed XML. our problem is that it is not in the correct format for a POST variable, because it lacks the name= part. therefore, the $_POST array does not contain it. Is there a way to intercept such POST data? I have been googling a lot but didn't find anything. I also have read of (mythical tales about) $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA but either I don't know how to use it or it's not set. my apache/php config has it to be always be filled. I also was considering whether XML-RPC would not need a name= part, but this is just a wild guess, as I suppose it would be based on normal POST mechanisms. Any help on how to capture that nameless POST data? or a definitive answer with "no, you can't do that" ? thanks in advance and forgive the OT. -- Massimiliano Bariola m.bariola@prodigiweb.it