Re: PHP database syntax/construct: can we make it better?

You are getting into templating again. Just create an SQL() function. I don't see why: <HOST = "my_host"> <USER = "my_name"> <PASS = "my_pass"> <DB = "my_db"> <SQL "select first,last,addr from my_table"> $first, $last, $addr<br> </SQL> is any cleaner than: <? $HOST = "my_host"; $USER = "my_name"; $PASS = "my_pass"; $DB = "my_db"; SQL("select first,last,addr from my_table", '$first, $last, $addr<br>'); ?> This is trivial to implement in user-space. And it is even DTD-friendly. Your <SQL> <HOST> stuff is an absolute nightmare from any sort of standards perspective. -Rasmus On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Monte Ohrt wrote: > One thing about PHP that has always been kind of difficult is the way it > accesses databases. I'm not necessarily talking about abstraction, but > the way the syntax works which is mostly inherited from the PHP language > structure. > > Here is an example of what I mean. I'll give one example of how PHP does > a database query, and then a comparison to the way another "html-ish" > scripting language accomplishes the same task. > > Example: selecting and displaying rows from a database. > > ---PHP:--- > > <? > > $link = mysql_connect("my_host","my_name","my_pass"); > mysql_select_db("my_db",$link); > > $result = mysql_query("select first,last,addr from my_table",$link); > > while($row = mysql_fetch_row($result) { > printf("%s, %s, %s<br>\n",$row[0],$row[1],$row[2]); > } > > echo "there were ".mysql_num_rows($result)." records found.<br>\n"; > > ?> > > > ---OTHER HTML-TYPE LANGUAGE:--- > > > <HOST = "my_host"> > <USER = "my_name"> > <PASS = "my_pass"> > <DB = "my_db"> > > <SQL "select first,last,addr from my_table"> > $first, $last, $addr<br> > </SQL> > There were $loop records found. > > > > > Of course each syntax has it's pros and cons. PHP is much more > extensible, but the latter is quite easy to read and quick to implement > without the need to construct for() and while() loops. Is there any way > to make PHP a bit easier to work with, instead of constantly having to > create while loops, calling functions for simple things like number of > rows fetched, etc.? Any good way to implicitly automate this? > > I have some ideas, but they require modifying the fundamental PHP > language construct. > > I have attached those thoughts below. Any other ideas, or do we just > deal with what we have? > > Monte