Retrieving data from remote server

[BooRadLey]

hello, what I would like to do is have a php app that is similar to gamespy lets say. It would ping an IP (of a dedicated game server) or something and retrieve specific data (players, map, etc..) Is this possible with PHP? Or am I looking in the wrong place entirely? Thanks in advance,

Boo

[rocklv]

Game servers will answer the following messages:
Messages are sent to the server by sending 4 consecutive bytes of 255 (32-bit integer -1) and then the string command followed by a zero byte to terminate it

"ping"
Server responds with a single byte code ASCII 'j'

"info"
Server responds with the following packet:
(int32) -1
(byte) ASCII 'C' (info response, S2A_INFO)
(string) net address of server
(string) name of the host / server
(string) name of the map
(string) game directory (i.e. valve/)
(string) Game description (e.g. "half-life multiplay")
(byte) active client count
(byte) maximum clients allowed
(byte) protocol version (currently 7)

"players"
Server responds with the following packet:
(int32) -1
(byte) ASCII 'D' (players response, S2A_PLAYER)
(byte) active client count

for each active client
	(byte)		client number / index
	(string)		player name
	(int32)		client's frag total
	(float32)		client's total time in-game

"rules"
Server responds with the following packet:
(int32) -1
(byte) ASCII 'E' (rules response, S2A_RULES)
(int16) number of rules

for each rule
	(string)		rule name
	(string)		rule value