CURL and XML request

This is XML request using CURL

<?php

$url = "http://localhost/members/mailbiz_external.php";
$request = <<<XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

	<address>
              <userid>333</userid> <!-- nur Zahlen -->
              <salutation>Herr</salutation>
              <firstname>Max</firstname>
              <lastname>Mustermann</lastname>
              <company>beispiel</company>
              <street>Somewhere. 296</street>
              <postalcode>12345</postalcode>
              <city>Anywhere</city>
              <country>Deutschland</country>
           </address>
XML;

       $ch = curl_init();

	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false); 
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FRESH_CONNECT, true);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $request);
	
	$xml = curl_exec($ch);

	echo $xml;

curl_close($ch);
?>

PHP:

And the mailbiz_external.php page look like,

<?
print_r($_POST)
?>

PHP:

This gives result of array. But My problem I cant assign this array element (the xml) into a variable. I am not sure how can I access the variable so that I get the xml to proceed.

I have tried $xml=$_POST[0]; but not work. Pls help

 

$request = urlencode($request);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "xml={$request}");

PHP:

... you have to specify a name for the XML data.