hello
i just posted few replies to similar thing
you can have the urls thedetailspage.php?id=1 or thedetailspage.php?search=text
to do so this is a helpful topic ( a cms tutorial )
http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200409/ij_09_07_04b.html
you will see how the tutorial selects the database and then get the field they need and inserted in a url ( the id=$variable ) and in the page for details they use the $_GET method ( or HTTP_GET ) and select from the database the only matching row
hope it will help
happy xmas and new year to all the world