PHP index help

Hello,

I really need help with the index page. The following instructions that I want to give PHP will explain what I want it to do:

1. Start a Session.
2. Write HTML code to display the contents of this page. (don't use the echo("") command)
3. Login to the MySQL server.
4. Select the database database1
5. Check the table usernames for the username registered/entered.
6. If (s)he wants to register it, and the username doesn't exist, insert it into the table along with his/her name and write, "You are now registered." If it does, write, "That username has already been registered."
7. But, if (s)he is trying to log in, and the username exists, write a link to page2.html with the title "Continue" and set the value of the session variable, "username." If it doesn't, write "Username doesn't exist."

I tried telling PHP to create the "username" session variable in the HEAD of the document and make it a blank variable, but I got the following error message:

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING, expecting T_VARIABLE or '$' in /home/content/r/a/n/ranazburr/html/index.php on line 26

Should I write the code in the HEAD and redirect the browser to certain pages?

Help would be appreciated:)

moonman239

You should do all processing before sending any headers or HTML. That gives you complete control over the response.

As for the parse error, we'll have to see the code on that line to help.