PDO Driver How-To

The purpose of this How-To is to provide a basic understanding of the steps required to write a database driver that interfaces with the PDO layer. Please note that this is still an evolving API and as such, subject to change. This document was prepared based on version 0.3 of PDO. The learning curve is steep; expect to spend a lot of time on the prerequisites.

Prerequisites

The following is list of prerequisites and assumptions needed for writing a PDO database driver:

1. A working target database, examples, demos, etc. working as per vendor specifications;

2. A working development environment:

   1. Linux: standard development tools, gcc, ld, make, autoconf, automake, etc., versions dependent on distribution;

   2. Other Unix: standard development tools supplied by vendor plus the GNU development tool set;

   3. Win32: Visual Studio compiler suite;

3. A working PHP environment version 5.0.3 or higher with a working PEAR extension version 1.3.5 or higher;

4. A working PDO environment (can be installed using 'sudo pecl install PDO'), including the headers which will be needed to access the PDO type definitions and function declarations;

5. A good working knowledge of the C programming language;

6. A good working knowledge of the way to write a PHP extension; George Schlossnagle's Advanced PHP Programming (published by Developer's Library, chapters 21 and 22) is recommended;

7. Finally, a familiarity with the Zend API that forms the heart of PHP, in particular paying attention to the memory management aspects.