Dbix::class is an sql to oo mapper with an object api inspired by class::dbi (and a compatibility layer as a springboard for porting) and a resultset api that allows abstract encapsulation of database operations. it aims to make representing queries in your code as perl-ish as possible while still providing access to as many of the capabilities of the database as possible, including retrieving related records from multiple tables in a single query, join, left join, count, distinct, group by and having support.

dbix::class can handle multi-column primary and foreign keys, complex queries and database-level paging, and does its best to only query the database in order to return something you've directly asked for. if a resultset is used as an iterator it only fetches rows off the statement handle as requested in order to minimise memory usage. it has auto-increment support for sqlite, mysql, postgresql, oracle, sql server and db2 and is known to be used in production on at least the first four, and is fork- and thread-safe out of the box (although your dbd may not be).