I do not understand what you want. Could you be more precise please?

About the " vs. ` thing: You can set the SQL mode in MySQL to be more standards compliant. The MySQL developers are conservative in changing the default as it will break many applications unfortunately. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/server-sql-mode.html (can be set per session if you don't want/can change it globally)

1. SQL-Quoting:
Postgresql whants a query like this: Select "Name" from "Persons"
Mysql wants the same query like this: Select `Name` from `Persons`

Mysql has a unique interpretation of the Standard by default. When i want to write a query whitch runs on mysql and other sql-servers i have to quote fielnames (and tablenames) diffrent. In my eyes this is something that should be done by PDO->quote(). 

(This is importend for captalized fieldnames)

2. Queryparameter:
The second thing is an idea i had. This idea is on quoting to. Here is an example:
  How it is often done:
    $sql = "select * from a where bla = " . $bla;
    $res = $db->query($sql);
  How it should be done:
    $sql = "select * from a where bla = " . $db->quote($bla);
    $res = $db->query($sql);
  How should be done (the nicer way):
    $stmt = $db->prepare("select * from a where bla = ?");
    $stmt->execute($bla)

 And now i like it to be done:
    $stmt = $db->query("select * from a where bla = ?",$bla);

 I like the ? and :-Syntax that i can use with prepared statements. And i like to use this syntax in query() too. Like prepare(), query() returns a PDO::Statement, so my idea is, that query() should return an executed prepared statement, when a second parameter is given. It saves one line of code and it feels smother, then getting an object back, call execute() for this object, and then call fetchall() on the same object. Back in the days you mysql returnd resultsets, and so people are still used to the thinking that db returns results, The Statement-Objects are diffrent, but most people do not recordnice it because they only use query(), Furthermore i think many people use prepare() only when a sql is used more then one time. This is psychological, and so they don't use the advantages of the ? and :-Syntax, because query() does not support it...

I hope everything is clearer now ... ? ...


regards, Hendrik

PDO::quote() places quotes around the *input string* (if required) and escapes special characters within the input string, using a quoting style appropriate to the underlying driver. 

PDO has never been about aligning SQL differences. And, I also want to stress out that MySQL does support the quoting you want, http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/server-sql-mode.html#sqlmode_ansi_quotes . It is *your* task to setup MySQL appropriately.

Your problem can be solved simpler using something like

class YourPDO {
    public function __construct($dsn, $user, $pass, $options = array()) {
        if (isset($options[PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND])) {
            $options[PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND] = "SET SESSION sql_mode = 'ANSI_QUOTES';".$options[PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND];
        } else {
            $options[PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND] = "SET SESSION sql_mode = 'ANSI_QUOTES'";
        }
        parent::__construct($dsn, $user, $pass, $options);
    }
    public function query($query, $params = null) {
        if ($params) {
            $stmt = $this->prepare($query);
            if ($stmt->execute($params)) {
                return $stmt;
            } else{
                return false;
            }
        } else {
            return parent::query($query);
        }
    }
}


The PDO interface is supposed to be quite small ..