Recursive cURL function to follow links when local server does not allow CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION

cURL_follow_location.php

/**
 * use cURL to get the contents on a remote page uses redirect headers
 * necessary when local server does not allow location 
 */	
function curl($url,$recursive_attempt=0){
	
	if (!function_exists('curl_init')) { return false; }
	$content = false;
	
	$can_follow = ( ini_get('safe_mode') || ini_get('open_basedir') ) ? false : true;  //cURL can't follow redirects in safe mode or if open_basedir is on
	
	$ch = curl_init(); 
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url); // set the URL 
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1); // 0 = don't return header data, 1 = do return header data (needed if $can_follow == false)
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); // return value instead of printing the response in the browser
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']); // fake a user agent so the fetch URL thinks this script is a browser
	
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 2); // timeout if the whole process takes longer than this many seconds
	curl_setopt($ch, 156, 2000); // try to connect to URL for this many miliseconds
	
	if($can_follow){
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1); // follow any redirect the accepting URL fowards to	
	}
			
	$content = curl_exec($ch);

	// if script could not follow redirect, get Location of where redirect wanted to go and then re-run this function with new URL
	if(!$can_follow){
	 $header  = curl_getinfo( $ch );
	 $recursive_attempt++;
	 if($header['http_code'] >= 300 && $header['http_code'] < 400  && $recursive_attempt < 3 ){
	  preg_match("#Location:\s(http:\/\/[^\s]*)#is", $content, $location); //get the location that the page tried to redirect to
	  $url = urldecode($location[1]);

	  curl_close($ch); 
	  return $this->curl($url,$recursive_attempt);// re-call this same function recursivly with new $url
	 }
	}

	curl_close($ch);
	return $content;
}