Introduction For nearly two decades, PHP Data Objects (PDO) has been the gold standard for database abstraction in PHP. It provides a lightweight, consistent interface for accessing multiple database systems, from MySQL and PostgreSQL to SQLite and Oracle.
This bridges the gap between raw PDO and lightweight ORMs. 3.1 PDOStatement::getColumnMeta() Extended In PDO v20 extended usage, getColumnMeta() now returns more reliable data: pdo v20 extended features
$stmt = $pdo->query("SELECT id, email FROM users"); for ($i = 0; $i < $stmt->columnCount(); $i++) { $meta = $stmt->getColumnMeta($i); // Returns: table, native_type, pdo_type, flags, name, len, precision if (in_array('primary_key', $meta['flags'])) { echo "Primary key: " . $meta['name']; } } This is invaluable for dynamic query builders and admin panels. Modern PDO allows retrieving statement-level driver-specific attributes: Introduction For nearly two decades, PHP Data Objects