For each table I usually do something like this connect(); if(strlen($id)) { $id = self::$dbh->quote($id); $where = "WHERE id=$id"; } else $where = "status > -1"; if($lx!=-1) { $limit = "LIMIT $lx,$ly"; } else $limit=""; try { $result = self::$dbh->query("SELECT * from twits $where order by ctime desc $limit"); $rows = $result->fetchall(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC); } catch (PDOException $e) { $this->fatal_error($e->getMessage()); } if(strlen($id) && count($rows)) return $rows[0]; return $rows; } } ?>]]>