Secure Members Area: PHP Solution for No SQL Hosting

[Hootenanny]

I'm attempting to create a members only area on a website. Now, I've got no formal training in web design, but I have dabbled in PHP before. Unfortunately, all the scripts I can find are built on SQL databases and my hosting package doesn't support SQL; so I'm looking for a script that is fairly easy to implement that will allow my to restrict access to registered members while using a flat database with encrypted passwords. I've considered using the .htacess file to do this but it is rather restrictive, i.e. members cannot change their passwords etc.

So if anyone has any suggestions I would be very grateful to here them. Many thanks in advance.

 

[chroot]

There are many kinds of flat-file databases, most of which are probably supported by PHP out of the box. Perhaps (g)dbm?

http://us.php.net/manual/en/ref.dba.php

- Warren