Password hashing?

I have a cgi script written in c++ that interacts with a mysql database. My question is this: How can I, from the administrator html page, use sha1 to hash passwords as I add new users to the website?

I'll be creating their usernames and passwords myself and was wondering if I could use a function such as sha1 (or something else?) to hash the password and then store it into the database. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

INSERT INTO
yourtablename
(userid, password, othercolumns)
VALUES
('xxx',sha1('passwordhere'),'blah blah blah values')


you then compare the SHA1 of the password they subsequently log in with and the stored password

SELECT count(*)
FROM yourdatabase
WHERE userid=$userid
AND password = sha1('$password')


if the count is 1 you let them in otherwise reject them.