Re: PDO Parameter types // PDO::PARAM_AUTO

I'm not sure that changes the proposal too much. My position is still that I'd like PDO to be less "magical," to put more of the burden on providing the right content to the user. Much of PHP internals are about providing a light layer on a third-party library (in this case, all the DB libraries). You can then compose them as needed to get the right functionality for your application. We get a lot of power and flexibility from that. Making APIs that are too "opinionated" makes it harder for users to control their destiny. I haven't tested this, but I think you could implement the functionality you need in userland. You could write a class like this: class MyPDOStatement extends \PDOStatement { public function bindValue($parameter, $value, $data_type = -1) { // or define a const somewhere for an AUTO type if ($data_type == -1) { switch (gettype($value) { case 'boolean': $data_type = \PDO::PARAM_BOOL; break; default: $data_type = \PDO::PARAM_STR; break; } // and add any other cases you care about } return parent::bindValue($parameter, $value, $data_type); } } Then when you construct a new \PDO instance, set a \PDO::ATTR_STATEMENT_CLASS option referring to that class. There are some examples in ext/pdo/tests, or you can look at the implementation of \PDO::prepare() for the nitty gritty. I think this hook is a good example of the principle I was describing. PDO may only have a basic set of tools, but it makes it easy to extend according to your preferences. Hope this helps, Adam