Apache DBM/htaccess Management with PHP

I *think* this is kind of database-related... forgive me if it's not. I am hopefully going to be managing the authentication on an Apache webserver using the Apache DBM module which is like a database-based version of .htaccess. I want to manage this with PHP, but don't know how to handle the DBM files. So here's my questions; 1. Can this be done using the integrated dbm*() functions in PHP? or the dba_*() ones? 2. Has anyone out there done or seen this done? 3. Anyone know of any examples/existing classes for dealing specifically with Apache? 4. Am I crazy? Unfortunately I don't know of any better way of doing this at the moment. If it will work, I think Apache's DBM is a much better solution than standard .htaccess files, since I am dealing with a couple hundred users at least. Thanks in advance for your help guys (and gals, not that I use "guys" in a sexist manner :P). Beau -- Beau Lebens, Technical Officer Science and Mathematics Education Centre Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U1987 Perth, Western Australia 6845 CRICOS provider code 00301J t: +61 8 9266-7297 (has voice-mail) f: +61 8 9266-2503 (ATT: Beau Lebens) e: b.lebens@curtin.edu.au w: http://learnt.smec.curtin.edu.au/