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

> I understand that the syntax given in the example is non-standards > compliant, I wouldn't suggest using that syntax in PHP itself. I can > make an SQL() function which performs the functionality in the example, > but its not too extensible beyond displaying the data row by row. I've > tried making my own classes & functions for this, but there isn't a way > to encapsulate functionality like so: > > sql_start(); > // do something here for each iteration > sql_end(); There's a very easy way to do this - it's called eval. It'd be trivial to write a class that does something like: $query->connect($Host, $Username, $Password); $query->execute('SELECT Name, Price FROM Products'); $query->display('<TR><TD>$Name</TD><TD>$Price</TD></TR>'); The only thing cold fusion (which is the most common example of the query syntax you mention) does which is worth emulating is the DSN behaviour. I really like being able to have a single point to configure *all* of the database options, including things like details of the connection pooling mechanism and restricting SQL to certain query types (e.g. during a server move it can be handy to allow only SELECTs on the tables you're copying). Everything else is arguing over semantics and I don't see how this: $query = mysql_query("SELECT Name, Price FROM Products"); while (list($Name, $Price) = mysql_fetch_row($query)) { echo "$Name is priced at $Price"; } is much worse than this: <CFQUERY NAME="ProductListing" DATASOURCE="#DSN#"> SELECT Name, Price FROM Products </CFQUERY> <CFLOOP QUERY="ProductListing"> <CFOUTPUT> #Name# is priced at #Price# </CFOUTPUT> </CFLOOP>