Question

I’m looking for a standard way to connect to databases in PHP. We’ve all been there – first start with some rudimentary code to connect/query/iterate/insert/disconnect, then the code grew as the program grew, and it ended up with a mess that’s hardly reusable.

I know there are many PEAR, PECL, and other PHP libraries/classes out there that can fit my description – but which ones are maintained, used, and have proven to be bug-free and efficient?

Answer 1

I’m supprised Zend_Db hasn’t been mentioned yet…

• PEAR’s MDB2: very stable, also provides a layer that implements all MDB2-supported features in all databases where it can at least be simulated. I’ve used this one for years with much success.
• Zend Framework’s Zend_Db: I’ve just started using the higher levels of Zend’s entire DB infrastructure, but it seems to be quite stable and extremely well thought out.
• PHP5’s native PDO: I’ve not used it at all, but I believe it is the simplest of all of these. In fact, both MDB2 and Zend_Db can use PDO as an underlying layer.

All of the above implement prepare and execute. Of the above, MDB2 is the most mature, as it’s been around for a long time and is based on DB and MDB. Zend_Db appears to be the most well thought out. I know there are others, but I don’t have experience or any knowledge about any of them.