Well the first thing before starting any project is to build a basic design, take a look at your system as a whole and decide what objects make up your system.
One class you will probably want to start with is a Database class. This class would provide methods that allow you to encapsulate and simplify the various database tasks that you need to perform. For example, I use something similar to:
PHP Code:
class Database
{
private $m_pConn;
...
public funciton __construct() { ... }
public funciton connect() { ... }
public funciton query() { ... }
public funciton queryColumn() { ... }
public funciton queryRow() { ... }
...
}
Inside the
__constructor you would create a new database connection by calling the connect() function.
The connect function would create you a new database connection and store it in $m_pConn.
The query, queryRow and queryColumn methods provide simpler interfaces for performing common "SELECT" operations, for example, we could fetch a single member from the database using the queryRow method:
PHP Code:
$pDatabase = new Database();
$aMember = $pDatabase->queryRow('SELECT username, email FROM members WHERE id = 4');
Don't get me wrong, this isn't going to be something you achieve in a night. It takes time to build efficient, reusable objects, but when you build them right, you can pop them into projects and reuse your code time after time.