[DB] returning typed data when fetching rows

Hello, I have been writing a custom class for using a PostgreSQL database, while looking at the DB classes to see if I could take advantage of them. Although I plan to use them in the near future, there is at least one feature that I find missing from them: I would like to have strongly typed data when fetching rows. If a column is of type INTEGER, I expect to get PHP integers, arrays, booleans instead of strings ('4', '{"foo","bar",{"this is foobar"}}', 't'...). So I have written some functions that: 1) collect information about the columns and caches them (feature available in PEAR classes) 2) convert a PHP value into an SQL string (supports PG arrays) 3) convert a value returned by the database (string) into a typed value (supports PG arrays as well) I think this should be implemented directly in PHP's extensions (in pg_fetch_row(), for instance), but since it isn't, I was wondering if such features would be welcome in PEAR's DB classes - not just for PostgreSQL, but also the other DB's implementations). If they are welcome, to which class(es) should they be added? DB_Table supports some type casting, but not for fetching rows, and it doesn't support arrays. DB_pgsql returns information about columns, but uses functions like pg_field_type(), which aren't as convenient, IMHO, as they could be. Please let me know what you think.