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# Introduction

Introduction --

## MDB2 Description

PEAR MDB2 is a merge of the PEAR DB and Metabase php database abstraction layers.

It provides a common API for all support RDBMS. The main difference to most other DB abstraction packages is that MDB2 goes much further to ensure portability. Among other things MDB2 features:

- An OO-style query API

- A DSN (data source name) or array format for specifying database servers

- Datatype abstraction and on demand datatype conversion

- Portable error codes

- Sequential and non sequential row fetching as well as bulk fetching

- Ability to make buffered and unbuffered queries

- Ordered array and associative array for the fetched rows

- Prepare/execute (bind) emulation

- Sequence emulation

- Replace emulation

- Limited Subselect emulation

- Row limit support

- Transactions support

- Large Object support

- Index/Unique support

- Module Framework to load advanced functionality on demand

- Table information interface

- RDBMS management methods (creating, dropping, altering)

- RDBMS independent XML based schema definition management

- Altering of a DB from a changed XML schema

- Reverse engineering of XML schemas from an existing DB (currently only MySQL)

- Full integration into the PEAR Framework

- PHPDoc API documentation

Currently supported RDBMS:

- MySQL

- PostgreSQL

- Oracle

- Frontbase

- Querysim

- Interbase/Firebird

- MSSQL

- SQLite

- Others to follow soon.

## Support resources

- external documentation

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