Second pass wipes $var

Hi, This is perhapse a little off topic, I have a login page, that then calls a validate page. The Validate page parses the data, and if all is ok either creates a user entry in the (mysql) database, or if an existing user writes a cookie. If I have a new user I wrtie the data to the page then reload the page with the idea that it will now have a user entry in the database and simply write the cookie. The problem is that even though I my url is validate.php?user=username&?passwd=passwd the the passwd varibile seems to be blank. If I now go back to the login page and login it will come to the validate page notice the existing user and write the cookie. The endreult is users need to login twice. So, can I get the value of an auto incremented field that I have just write without running a query on the database? As then I could just write the cookie the first time. Thanks -- Rob Brown-Bayliss ---=====<+>=====---