API Level Abstraction
Libraries unify access to databases by providing a single low-level programming interface to the application developer. Their advantages are most often speed and flexibility because they are not tied to a specific query language (subset) and only have to implement a thin layer to reach their goal. The application developer can choose from all language features but has to provide configurable statements for querying or changing tables. Otherwise his application would also be tied to one database.
Popular use for database abstraction layers are among object-oriented programming languages, which are similar to API level abstraction layers. In an object oriented language like C++ or Java, a database can be represented through an object, whose methods and members (or the equivalent thereof in other programming languages) represent various functionalities of the database. They also share the same advantages and disadvantages as API level interfaces.
Read more about this topic: Database Abstraction Layer
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