apache httpd + PHP authentication

Hello, httpd v1.3.27, php v4.3.0. I have a web page I wish to restrict access. I prefer to use the standard apache httpd authentication with .htaccess and password file. This method does not seem to work with PHP. A "parser" is called every time a page is accessed. If no page is defined, the home page is loaded. Subsequent pages are linked with URLs like "http://mysite.com/?page=nextpage.php". In the parser I define a "base_dir" variable that allows access to a common set of code files regardless of where the page file is. The complete parser is:

  require('./php/lib/base-dir.inc');    // Assigns $base_dir

$page = $_REQUEST['page']; if ("" == $page)

    $page = "main-index.php";

include($base_dir . $page); So the restricted page is in a subdirectory with a .htaccess file to indicate that a name/password is required. This is ignored, presumably because the file is include()'d. I have looked at the authentication info in the docs. I have to do all the work of verifying the name/password. I do not wish to do so since an satisfactory method already exists. Is there a way to use a parser as above and still have httpd recognize the need for a name/password? -- jimoe at sohnen-moe dot com