password authentication

G'day all: I have a single database in which lie several tables. Each table has a single user who is able only to perform a few tasks, and only on that one table. Each table is identical in structure, only the data itself differs. I wish to be able to authenticate each user, and divert them to their own table within the database from a php driven page. I am able to program much of the script/s itself, my problem is how do I authenticate the users? I could do some kind of comparison between what has been inputted compared to a field in a table. The thing is that the users I have set up for their own tables, their info (username and encoded password)s are in the 'user' table of the 'mysql' database, and I'm not sure I should be allowing access to this database! I could also incorporate fields into the tables themselves for first and second names, and username and passwords...and perform a mysql_query() on this table, but then wouldn't there be some knid of conflict between identically named users and passwords? i.e. between these tables and the user table in 'mysql'?? If any relative newbies are out there who have just discovered and covered this stage already, I would love to hear about the differing methods by whcih the authentication has been acheived. I use mysql 3.22.32 with php4.0.3pl1 Cheers. Russ -------------------------------------------- "Believe nothing - consider everything" Russ Michell (APU webteam) r.j.michell@anglia.ac.uk ext 2331