In our project we use yourself DBI abstraction (it's not perfect solution but it satisfys our requirements). There are implemented some methods for storing and retriving data from database (as you suggest). But some time ago I've found a good DBI abstraction for build SQL query - DBIx::SearchBuilder. I'm planning to use it because it's flexible and multipurpose tool.

Hope that DBIx::SearchBuilder will be useful for you.

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