PEAR DB is a database abstraction layer providing: * an OO-style
query API

* portability features that make programs written for one DBMS work
with other DBMS's

* a DSN (data source name) format for specifying database servers

* prepare/execute (bind) emulation for databases that don't support
it natively

* a result object for each query response

* portable error codes

* sequence emulation

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

* formats fetched rows as associative arrays, ordered arrays or
objects

* row limit support

* transactions support

* table information interface

* DocBook and phpDocumentor API documentation