$raw_data = file_get_contents(trim($xml_feed));

function getFeed($xml_feed) {

	global $xml_data, $item_id;
	
	// Open connection to RSS XML file for parsing.
	if (function_exists("curl_init"))
    {
    	$feed = curl_init(trim($xml_feed));
    	curl_setopt($feed, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);    			
    	$raw_data = curl_exec($feed);
    	curl_close($feed);    			  		
    }
    else
    {    			
		$raw_data = @file_get_contents(trim($xml_feed));
    }
    
    if (isset($raw_data))
    {
    	
		$xmlParser = xml_parser_create();
	
		// Set up element handler
		xml_set_element_handler( $xmlParser, "startElement", "endElement" );
	
		// Set up character handler
		xml_set_character_data_handler( $xmlParser, "charElement" );
	
		// Parse the data
		xml_parse( $xmlParser, $raw_data);
	
		// Free xml parser from memory
		xml_parser_free( $xmlParser );
		
    }
    else 
    {
    	$xml_data = array();
    }
    	
	return $xml_data;

} // end function getFeed