Heh, actually on further thought, I decided that a classic OOP method would be the best solution. I could define the basic/default "data access class" with all the fun little members like get_user_data; or whatever I decide I need, then every database specific implementation can simply inherit from the default class and I can easily over ride any method that needs "custom sql", or even override the entire class entirely (say If I wanted to use flat files or something..)