my own database abstraction layer?

Anon

i'm relatively new to php, so just as a personal project, i've been thinking about coding up my own database abstraction layer (if thats what you call it hehe), one for accessing mysql databases and another for CVS files, so that i can interchange between the two easily and quickly...

my first question would first of all be, does anyone have any suggestions as to what sort of functions i would be looking at coding? is there some sort of 'assumed standard' or sorts which i should stick to? or should i simply mimmick all the mysql functions that php has to offer?

sarahk

have a trawl around the sites, there are lots of examples usually a class. They are an essential tool. I have different passwords in my dev environment from my production so the database layer stays static and handles all that for me. Makes my life much much easier.

[deleted]

What sort of functions? Everything you need.
Using a database abstraction layer means that your 'real' code may not use a single specific function anymore, only functions from the abstraction layer.

Indeed you'd by creating copies of the mysql functions, with some 'smart' changes ofcourse. Some databases can do X, some databases can do Y.

It's really up to you, you'll be using the abstractionlayer. 🙂

A forum, a FAQ, email notification, what else do you need?

Time to YAPF!: http://www.hvt-automation.nl/yapf/

Anon

I did this.

There actually are abstraction layers available already, such as "ADODB" which doesn't really have anything to do with MS ADODB, but it's mimicing it's functionality.

I used PostgreSQL for a long time and wrote an abstraction layer called "DBXS", which I also modeled somewhat after ADODB.

I just prefer it because I have an object fixation 🙂

$database = new DBXSConnection($connectionString);
$database->open();

$recset = $database->query($sql);

while (!$recset->eof())
{
$id = $recset->fields[0];
$name = $recset->fields[1];
$email = $recset->fields["email"];

$recset->movenext();

}

$database->close();

The idea was that if I ever needed to use a different database that I could do that. Now, a little while ago I started converting everything to MySQL (this is a pain, and still going on).

Because DBXS only worked with PostgreSQL before, I needed to add the functionality for MySQL now, which wasn't all that hard. Some of the mysql_ functions have different names, and passing the connection parameters is different also, but with some adjusting I managed to whip up a MySQL specific DBXS class that let's me use all my existing queries without modification (aside from formatting dates)

I have a class.dbxs.pgsql.php file and a class.dbxs.mysql.php file, then i just create a "class.dbxs.php" symlink for whichever of the two I need.

Granted, this is not because I need to do this, but because I want to, and because I have the programmer's syndrome (i.e. reinventing the wheel). But it has been a fun experience.