.htaccess and passwd protection

helloo

i'm starting to learn to play with the .htaccess file and just protected one of many directories on one of my sites with it.

But there is one thing i wonder; once you type in the username and password to get access to the directory, its like, there is no logout option.
If i leave the directory and then come back afterwards, it doesnt prompt me for the password anymore.

So, do i have to create php sessions with the .htaccess file? For how much time the door will stay open?

What's the best use of the .htaccess in a passwd protection circumstance?

Thanks

As far as I know if you're user .htaccess the only way to have it cleared is to shutdown the browser. If you're going to start using sessions/cookies then you might as well use a user database.

Actually the .htaccess authorization also expires, but I don't know after how much time and if this depends on the server. For sure there is no "logout" option as said above

I guess a better way would be, as jeff's suggestion, to use a database.
Of course, i could program myself a couple of php scripts from scratch serving that purpose but do you know guys where would i find some snippets out there, already written, that would approximately do that; insert new user and their respective password in a database table?
...i know its quite simple, maybe the time to find it on the web would be as much as the time needed to write it from scratch...