Hi, my name is François Faubert.

For years, I’ve been using an early version of a PHP database access class written by a friend of mine (hi Max!). I’ve been tweaking it over and over again, spending way too much time on it considering the end result.

Well I’m tired of reinventing the wheel. Since it’s fifth installment, PHP provides an API easing access to all types of databases called PDO functions. All the features you need are in there, coded in C by NASA engineers and is likely better than anything I could come up with.

You really should read up on the PDO if you currently maintain a custom database access object — or none at all. Also, as the documentation points out, this is not a full-blown database abstraction layer (to run MySQL, Oracle or others transparently) it’s a data-access abstraction layer (so make sure your queries are properly formed for the database you want to use).