ADOdb is a Database Abstraction Layer that allows the writing of database independent SQL statements. It does this by placing a layer of generic statement execution code between the programmer and the PHP database-specific access commands. This allows the writing of portable SQL code that can access multiple databases. For example the following database specific statements:

MySQL         mysqli_execute
Oracle        oci_execute
SQL Server    mssql_execute

can all be replaced by a single ADOdb replacement execute(). In addition, ADOdb provides a number of shortcut commands to commonly used SQL syntax.

ADOdb is not a replacement for the PHP database driver, which must be installed and correctly configured.