login scripts

Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are going to find tidy pre-packaged scripts that fit nicely into your application.

From what you've described, you want to develop a custom online music database/streaming service. This is an aggressive project for someone obviously just beginning to learn Internet and database programming.

You'd like to think of a "registration and login system" as a single functional idea. In fact, you need to carefully develop several pieces to build that solution--and have it fit into your overall application.

A quick rundown of the pieces you will need to develop:

1. A database table to store members in including a strategy for how you are going to store the password. I suggest you do not store the password in plain text. Rather store it encrypted using MD5 for example. TIP: You never decrypt the password, you just encrypt what the user types in and compare your encrypted version to the encrypted password in the database.
2. A login form. Basically prompt for a username and password.
3. A new member form. Prompt for all the data you require for your members. TIP: Less is more. Don't require 10 fields or you'll lose a lot of potential members.
4. Code to process the registration form, validate the data, and create a new member record in the database. Probably want to send a welcome email to the new member.
5. You need authentication and authorization logic to process the username and password. Those are 2 seperate things, but for your purposes, perhaps authentication equals authorization.
6. You probably want an "I forgot my password" feature to set a new password and email it to the member.
7. You need a "my account" form where members can update their info and change their password.

Maybe all that sounds complicated to you. Maybe not. But putting all those pieces together and then more importantly, making it foolproof, is a big job.

If you want example PHP code for doing all of the above, there are plenty of free, open-source apps that do this, so you could download one of them and study the source code. For example, phpBB has a member login and registration system written in PHP.

You can find a login script here:

http://www.evolt.org/PHP-Login-System-with-Admin-Features

I think it is a fairly good solution. Of course integrating it with your website will pose challenges as Troy mentioned. There is alot of discussion after the article so I suggest you read the comments as well as the article to get a good idea of all the factors involved.

Thanks, DanceInstructor. That looks like an excellent reference. Brims, note that by quickly scrolling through the article, there are easily over 1,000 lines of code to create the system.

You can find a login script here:

http://www.evolt.org/PHP-Login-System-with-Admin-Features

I think it is a fairly good solution. Of course integrating it with your website will pose challenges as Troy mentioned. There is alot of discussion after the article so I suggest you read the comments as well as the article to get a good idea of all the factors involved.