Re: PHP package for database abstraction layer

Octavi Fors wrote:

Hi, I am about to start a project for a PHP-based website which will be feeded by Oracle database. In order to safe effort in eventual future migration of database system, I would like to make use of a PHP interface as much abstracted as possible. I am exploring which alternatives do I have concerning that issue. By now, I've seen two packages in PEAR (DB and MDB) which may serve to my purposes. I would appreciate whatever report/recommendation of anyone using those (or other) packages? Comparative analysis would also be welcomed.

If you stick to integer and text datatypes you should be fine with DB. Otherwise you really want to have a look at MDB as it has datatype abstraction for timestamps, lobs etc. Also it can even keep your schema abstract from the RDBMS. Finally MDB 1.x has a faster "core" than PEAR DB which offsets some of the performance penalty the optional datatype handling creates. regards, Lukas