CGI Hangs When Reading from Server

[dargueta]

Hi all, I'm having another problem with a script I'm writing. I have a standard function that reads the response from a server after being sent some request. However, I have a problem in the loop that reads the message body. If there is a message body, it'll read everything in, but then loop indefinitely when it reaches the end of the response. I've tried several things, but I have no idea what to do anymore. (Please keep in mind that I taught myself Perl last weekend, so I'm still a noob in this respect.)

sub readHTTPResponseHeader
{
	my $hfile = $_[0];
	my $thisline = '';
	my %header = ();
	my $has_body = 0;
	my $trash = "";

	#process first line - status line
	$thisline = <$hfile>;
	($trash,$header{'.Http-Version'},$header{'.Status-Code'},$header{'.Status-Message'}) = split(/^HTTP\/(\d\.\d) (\d{3}) (.*)$/,$thisline);
	#process header lines
	while(defined($thisline = <$hfile>))
	{
		chomp($thisline);
		if($thisline =~ /^\s*?$/){
			$has_body = 1;
			last;
		}
		my($trash,$key,$value) = split(/^\s*([\w\-\d]+)\s*:\s*(.*)\s*$/,$thisline);
		$header{$key} = $value;
	}
	#if there is a message body, read it in all at once.
	if($has_body == 1)
	{
		if(exists $header{'Content-Length'}){
				  read $hfile,$header{'.Message-Body'},$header{'Content-Length'};
		}
		else
		{
			my $message_body = '';
			#PROBLEM HERE - NOT RECOGNIZING END OF TRANSMISSION
			while(defined ($thisline = <$hfile>)){
				$message_body .= $thisline;
			}
			$header{'.Message-Body'} = $message_body;
		}
	}
	else
	{
		$header{'.Message-Body'} = '';
	}

	return %header;
}