One of the nicest things about Perl - the DBI module - finallymakes an appearance in PHP. Take a look at the PEAR database abstractionlayer, by far one of the coolest PHP widgets out there.
I'll start with the basics - what the heck is a database abstraction layer anyhow?
A database abstraction layer is a database-independent software interface. As the name suggests, it's a layer of abstraction over the actual database access methods and allows developers to deal with different databases without radically altering their code on a per-database basis.
By placing a layer of abstraction between the database and the developer, the database abstraction layer insulates the programmer from database implementation details. If you initially write a script to talk directly to, say, Oracle and later need to have it work with another database server, you will usually have to rewrite all the database-specific parts. If you use a database-independent API, you can port your script over with very little surgery required.
PHP's database abstraction layer comes courtesy of PEAR, the PHP Extension and Application Repository (http://pear.php.net). In case you didn't know, PEAR is an online repository of free PHP software, including classes and modules for everything from data archiving to XML parsing. When you install PHP, a whole bunch of PEAR modules get installed as well; the DB class is one of them.
/ 64 
