On CodePoets.co.uk, there's a new tutorial posted by David Goodwin showing how to use PHP with the PEAR MDB2 component to access your database backend.

While writing some PHP Training materials for Pale Purple, I thought I'd add an updated guide on PHP and database access. I've already done one on PEAR::DB, but PEAR::MDB2 is it's successor and has a slightly different API.... and as PEAR::DB is now deprecated, it's probably about time I rewrote it anyway.

David looks at what the MDB2 package is, how to install it, connecting to your database and including some error handling as well. He (thankfully) also touches on one of the most handy features of the package - the prepared statements and the security they can offer.