htaccess and $PHP_AUTH_USER

Please, someone, help me... What I want to do: Have a user prompted for an ID/password, both of which (if valid), get passed to a PHP script, which then uses the ID/password to selectively display certain fields of a table. (For example, if the user logs in as "Sales", he would only see the sales-related fields of the tables. Whereas, if the user logs in as "Production", she would see the production-related fields. Pretty simple.) I've read the PHP docs on $PHP_AUTH_USER. One stupid question: Must I use the htaccess directory-protection feature of Apache in order for this to work (or is$PHP_AUTH_USER not dependent on Apache (or any web server) at all)? I mean, from reading the docs, it seems as if the value stored in $PHP_AUTH_USER comes what the user types into the Apache-spawned dialog box (when the user types the URL containing that password-protected directory.)?? The thing is, when I turn password protection on for the directory in question, and add the users and passwords to the htaccess file, then go to the URL in the browser, I get prompted several times for a user and password--first, it seems, by Apache, then by the PHP code I copied from the docs. If anyone can help, I'd greatly appreciate it. Best would be some real code running in a similar server environment. (The site in question is running on www.fatcow.com servers--they're running PHP3 (shouldn't matter, right) and Apache.) MUCH thanks in advance... ...Rene --- Rene Fournier, PLEASErenefournierNO@yahooSPAM.com