Data access technologies

The MySQLi Extension (MySQL Improved) is a relational database driver used in the PHP scripting language to provide an interface with MySQL protocol compatible databases (MariaDB, MySQL, Percona Server, TiDB).

component Object Model APIs for accessing data sources

ADOdb is a database abstraction library for PHP, originally based on the same concept as Microsoft's ActiveX Data Objects. It allows developers to write applications in a consistent way regardless of the underlying database system storing the information. The advantage is that the database system can be changed without re-writing every call to it in the application.

string that has an associated data structure used to describe a connection to a data source; often overlaps with "connection string"; need not be the same as the filename for the database