Program#1: Loading the XML images file from a database (assuming the database has file and folder columns in a table imagelist)
$dbcnx= mysql_connect("MYSQLHOST","database","password");
mysql_select_db("database");
$sql="select file,folder from imagelist order by date desc";
$results=mysql_query($sql);
echo "<images>";
while ($row = @mysql_fetch_array($results))
{
echo "<image>";
$FILE = $row["file"];
$FOLDER = $row["folder"];
echo "<file>$FILE</file>";
echo "<directory>$FOLDER</directory>";
echo "</image>";
}
echo "</images>";


Program#2:
Inserting records into the database (provided a GET with the right folder name to load into the database)

//Get the folder name from a request query:
$folder=$_GET[folder];
$fullfolder="../../www/bimages/".$folder."/thumbnails/";
$images=listImages($fullfolder);
//$images=listImages("./");

$dbcnx= mysql_connect("MYSQLHOST","db","pwd");
mysql_select_db("db");
for ($j=0;$j<sizeof($images);$j++)
{
echo $images[$j];
echo "<br>";
//now load the sql as insert statements
$sql="insert imagelist (file, folder) values ('".$images[$j]."','".$folder."')";
$results=mysql_query($sql);
}

function listImages($dirname=".") {
   $ext = array("jpg", "png", "jpeg", "gif");
   $files = array();
   if($handle = opendir($dirname)) {
       while(false !== ($file = readdir($handle)))
           for($i=0;$i<sizeof($ext);$i++)
               if(strstr($file, ".".$ext[$i]))
                   $files[] = $file;
       closedir($handle);
   }
   return($files);
}