Newbie - how best to create a password-protected page

I haven't even started learning PHP yet (although I've skimmed a book!). I
want to add a small number of password-protected pages to a website
developed by someone else. I'd be really grateful if any experienced user
could let me know (in outline) what would be the best approach.

My guess is that it isn't enough to have everything in a page, and set it to
die if the password is wrong, as you could view the source and get the info
that way.

I thought I'd ask the ISP involved if there are "private" folders available
and have a script store both the password and the sensitive info there,
accessing it if the password is matched.

Otherwise, I thought I'd create a trivial MySQL database and store things in
that. Will that be secure?

Am I on the right lines? Seems silly to reinvent the wheel!

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##  PH, London
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