Developers can choose to connect to the SQL database with either the PDO or Mysqli extension. those who still use mysql are advised to change it to mysqli as it is deprecated and will no longer be supported or recognized soon.

However, when choosing which database extension to use, you should consider these few points.

PDO is supported by more than 7 different databases, while Mysqli is only supported by mysql.

PDO is purely object oriented while mysqli is both object oriented and procedural . This means that people who are not yet familiar with object oriented programing, can use mysqli but not PDO.

PROBLEM.

There is a big problem you will likely face, when using Mysqli prepared statements. This is getting result from a prepared statement.

You can say
$stmt=myqli->prepare( "select from bla bla bla where bla bla is = bla bla";
$tmt->bind_param(ss,bla bla bla);
stmt->execute();

Now this is lovely abi ?

Now to get the result from this statement, assuming you need to compare the values for authentication or something, you simply type

$info=$stmt->get_result();

Thats all, it gets the result and put it in info for u to us. {{BAD NEWS}}, some or most basic hosting packages will not support this. Most basic hosting packages will not have more than php.5.3 installed, so you wont be able to get that result back this way. They will tell you to upgrade to a cloud host, where you will have the ability to install whatever version you like. Dont see the price.

Now when you get this sad news, to go back to retrieve that result the other way, is so stressful. You will have to use bind result function first, after that you specify the column names, you want the results to be bound to. Assuming you had up to 10 columns, you have to start specifying them one by one. Before you finish one function you don write up to 10000000000 codes.

You might just forget about getting result from prepared statements and dont use them at all if getting result is required. However this makes ur app vulnerable to attacks.


PDO handles this very simply without stress. But there is also a problem you will face with pdo as you work. Will talk about it in my next post.

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@OP Have you ever heard about

mysqli_fetch_object()

?

osile2012:

PDO is supported by more than 7 different databases, while Mysqli is only supported by sql

@ the bold

maekhel:

@ the bold

I am sure the op means driver support and meant mysql instead of sql. And he would be right about that.

mekaboy:

mysql instead of sql.

My point

As i promised earlier, let me share a problem you will face with PDO.

After you have selected items from a database, its not possible to count the number of rows returned with PDO. This seems to be a big issue. Assuming your next action will depend on the number of rows returned, There is no way to count rows with PDO. Mysqli has the fetch_row and num_rows function to handle that but PDO hasnt .

SOLUTION

You have to run the exact query but this time use count. E.G " select count(*) from bla bla where bla bla = bla ba ". Then run the query like $counter=$dbh->query($query);

To get the number of rows returned

$numrows=$counter->fetchcolumn();

This is the way you can get the number of rows.

i just love nairaland, learning new things

Sekem out of thread don't understand what op dey talk.

ok

I just scored a hat trick of FP


brb

This thread reminds me of C#.

Who cares [sup][/sup] [color=#990000][/color]

php is to python what mysql is to postgresql

What's this? Omo, wetin man no know, man no know.

so what exactly are u driving @, is it because mysqli has that issue so we should switch to PDO or what??

how is this my business huh!!

Ok.... Still learning python...

Wetin dem dey talk here sef, I thought I saw DPO and NYPD

I be DB Administrator... Make I just dey observe

@OP

if($stmt->execute()){

()

}

Hmmm

The poster below me sha
I doubt if he knows what he is talking about

i love pdo i hate mysql

Make Una no sell person here

osile2012:
As i promised earlier, let me share a problem you will face with PDO.

After you have selected items from a database, its not possible to count the number of rows returned with PDO. This seems to be a big issue. Assuming your next action will depend on the number of rows returned, There is no way to count rows with PDO. Mysqli has the fetch_row and num_rows function to handle that but PDO hasnt .

SOLUTION

You have to run the exact query but this time use count. E.G " select count(*) from bla bla where bla bla = bla ba ". Then run the query like $counter=$dbh->query($query);

To get the number of rows returned

$numrows=$counter->fetchcolumn();

This is the way you can get the number of rows.

OP, except i don't understand what you're talking about, but I use rowCount() to fetch number of rows in PDO and it works perfectly for me.

how do you convert your alrdy existing MySQL script to mysqli?

wethebest:
how do you convert your alrdy existing MySQL script to mysqli?

Very simple (being sarcastic), just rewrite all your queries with mysqli syntax or you could just try PDO at once being the latest and most robust