Stop reinventing the wheel
For years, I’ve been using an early version of a PHP database access class written by a friend of mine (hey Max!). I’ve been tweaking it over and over again, spending way too much time on it.
Well I’m tired of reinventing the wheel. I just learned that since it’s fifth installment, PHP provides an integrated object easing access to all types of databases it calls 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. Also, as the documentation points out, this is not a full-blown database abstration layer (to run MySQL, Oracle or others transparently) it’s a data-access abstration layer (so make sure your queries are properly formed for the database you want to use).