Someone I know is interested in starting a site to sell antiques he has, I've never done something like keep track of multiple items... I know HTML and some CSS, I started to look at XML but it didn't seem like that would generate a list like I want. I am willing to learn anything so if you have any suggestions I'll take them.

Just to give yo an idea of what I want to do... I'd like to have it display an image of the item, with the name, price, description, etc. but I'd like to have a short piece of code that will display the multiple items... to create a list without me having to write code for every item on a list... Also i would like to have the option to have people sort it by what it is, so if they want to look at lamps they select that from a list and it will filter out any other items... This is kinda gonna be a summer project for me as i find myself very bored most of the day. i said i'd try to help him so if you have any advice, a site to look at, or anything I appreciate the help

I went looking around and i think XML will do it if i use XSL to display it, but please still give feedback or if you think something else will do the job better.

server side code and a database

XML is very good at describing objects (what it is designed for) but has no intrisic means of scripting prices and quantities etc

The database that you pick will mostly be based on the language that you want to write your site in (php, asp, perl, java, ruby). MySQL and PostgreSQL are both good starting choices because most web technologies/languages openly support both of these. If I had to pick one for a beginner I would pick MySQL. Try using xampp, which has a bundled apache/php/mysql setup that will allow you to use phpmyadmin (a GUI db manager) to do the actual table design.

Alternately you could use an existing content management system that has support for ecommerce, something like Drupal or Joomla.

While if your server will run PHP use zencart it is opensource and it doesn't cost a dime and it is easy to customize.

I gave you links just in case you don't know what I am referring to