Database Abstraction
A database abstraction layer is an API to provide a set of functions to deal with a multitude of databases in an implementation-independent way. By changing the back end of the database abstraction layer, you can easily switch from MySQL to Oracle, for example. Perl's DBI (DataBase Interface) is such a layer, and one of the most well-known features of the PHPLib is its database abstraction layer organized in the DB_Sql class.
Portability
For a professional Web application programmer, database abstraction can be useful and important. The base of every application is its data-model, a set of data structures for general-purpose usage, often contained within a database. While PHP supports a great number of databases, every database ...
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