Here's an example of the most often used database functions:

<?php

$result = db_fetch (
    'select * from sitellite_mime_type'
);
info ($result);
// result will be one of the following:
// - false if the query failed or there were no results (check db_error() to differentiate)
// - an object if there was only one result
// - an array of objects if there was more than one result

$result = db_fetch_array (
    'select * from sitellite_mime_type'
);
info ($result);
// result is always an array of objects (or an empty array)

$result = db_shift (
    'select title from sitellite_news where id = ?',
    $parameters['id']
);
info ($result);
// result is the value of the first field of the first search result

$result = db_single (
    'select * from sitellite_news where id = ?',
    $parameters['id']
);
info ($result);
// result is an object

$result = db_shift_array (
    'select id from sitellite_news'
);
info ($result);
// result is a numeric array of news story ids

$result = db_pairs (
    'select id, title from sitellite_news'
);
info ($result);
// result is an associative array with id as the key and title as the value for each entry

$result = db_execute (
    'insert into fake_table values (1, 2, 3)'
);
// result is a true/false value determining the
// success of the statement executed

$result = db_lastid ();
// result is the last auto-incremented value from a
// previous call to db_execute()

$quoted = db_quote ('text to quote');
// escapes text for inclusion in an SQL statement
// this is done automatically for placeholders
// (question mark substitution).

$error_message = db_error ();

$error_number = db_errno ();

$query = db_query (
    'select * from sitellite_news where category = ?'
);
// query is an saf.Database.Query object -- see:
// http://www.sitellite.org/docs/Database/Query.html
// example usage:

if ($query->execute ($parameters['category'])) {
    $total = $query->rows ();

    $results = array ();
    while ($result = $query->fetch ()) {
        $results[] = $result;
    }

    $q->free ();
} else {
    die ($query->error ());
}

?>

Note that these are aliases of functions you can call on a global $db object, but they're much easier to type and keep code more readable as functions.

For more info about the saf.Database package, see:

• http://www.sitellite.org/docs/li_Database.html