Well I am a php n00b heh, and I wanted to make a login page that authenticated users from a MySql database. I was just wondering if you all could look at the code and tell me what might be wrong with it. I do not get any php errors but also nothing shows on the page from the function like the login fields. I know I probably missed one small part but I seemed to have hit a road block. I just need some help in understanding how to connect the dots. Here is the code [code] <?php session_start(); ?> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <title>User Login</title> </head> <body> <?php function login_form(){ //function that when called outputs the login form echo "<form action=\"index.php\" method=\"POST\"><h3>System Login</h3>User Name: <input type=\"text\" name=\"user_name\"><br>Password : <input type=\"password\" name=\"password\"><br><input type=\"submit\" name=\"submit\" value=\"Login\"><br></form>"; } if (isset($_POST['username'])) { $inputusername=$_POST['username']; $inputpassword=$_POST['password']; $host="";//mysql host $user="";//mysql username $pass="";//mysql password for the username $database="";//name of the database $connection=mysql_connect($host, $user, $pass) or die(mysql_error());//connect to db $db=mysql_select_db($database, $connection) or die(mysql_error());//select database $sql = "SELECT password FROM users WHERE username='$inputusername'";//the query $result = mysql_query($sql) or die("Incorrect username - <a href=\"index.php\">try again</a>");//run the query, if it can't find a user output error message and link to try login again $row=mysql_fetch_array($result);//get an array from the row list($dbpassword)=$row;//get $dbpassword out of the array if ($dbpassword == $inputpassword) {//if the password they entered is correct for that username //Logged in $_SESSION['username'] = $username;//start session for user to allow access to protected pages echo "You are now logged in"; } else { echo "Incorrect password<br/>"; login_form(); } } ?> </body> </html> [/code] thanks for the help.