This class simply holds a string, so that fragments of SQL statements can be distinguished from identifiers and values that should be implicitly quoted when interpolated into SQL statements.

For example, when specifying a primary key value when inserting into a new row, some RDBMS brands may require you to use an expression to generate the new value of a sequence. If this expression is treated as an identifier, it will be quoted and the expression will not be evaluated. Another example is that you can use Zend_Db_Expr in the Zend_Db_Select::order() method to order by an expression instead of simply a column name.

The way this works is that in each context in which a column name can be specified to methods of Zend_Db classes, if the value is an instance of Zend_Db_Expr instead of a plain string, then the expression is not quoted. If it is a plain string, it is assumed to be a plain column name.