database stuff and conditions

hi, i am a competant perl programmer of nearly a year and a half and I have just this week started looking at php. I am trying to write a couple of webpages that will allow me to update a mysql database which is powering a dns server, for a dynamic dns service. every time i have tried to grab some stuff from the database and check the login or domain permissions, I get stuck in a mess of ifs and whiles. can anyone give me an idead on the best method/starting place. my database looks like this: users -- pairs of usernames/user_ids domains -- matches domainnames/domain_ids/passkeys to user_ids records -- all the dns records. not got to this point yet. the keys also have to be digetst::md5 encrypted to compare with those in the database. I think i may need cookies for this so any help would be greatly appreciated. -- Mat Harris OpenGPG Public Key ID: C37D57D9 mat.harris@genestate.com matthewh.genestate.com