Question

Can PHP PDO extension bind nested objects automatically? I mean using foreign key to bind automagicallymessages array to a collection of Message instances:

class User
{
   public $id, $name;
   public messages = array();
}

class Message { public $id, $content }

----------------------------   -------------------------------------------
| Table user   | id | name |   | Table message  | id | content | user_id |
----------------------------   -------------------------------------------

Answer 1

Can PHP PDO extension bind nested objects automatically? I mean using foreign key to bind automagically messages array to a collection of Message instances:

No, it can’t. You could write a simple layer on top though that accomplishes that for you. PDO is a database abstraction layer. That means that it provides a consistent API to access multiple kinds of databases. It is not – in any way – an ORM layer. If you want something like that, look at Doctrine or Propel. These will do what you want.