This is why you shouldn't use the mysql_* functions

sneakyimp

The old mysql_* functions are going to be deprecated:
http://news.php.net/php.internals/53799

Use mysqli_* or PDO instead.

bradgrafelman

They aren't going to be deprecated; they already have been. They've been outdated for years before that, even.

sneakyimp

Hmm...I wonder what that announcement is about then? Perhaps their use will start to throw E_DEPRECATED ?

bradgrafelman

The announcement was probably about the future deprecation of the MySQL extension.

Did you note that the announcement was made almost a year and a half ago?

EDIT: Upon reading it further, it sounds like that announcement is proposing a more thorough "deprecation" in the future such as the use of E_DEPRECATED errors (which apparently won't appear until after 5.4, despite the fact they were probably overdue since PHP 5.2 or earlier).

sneakyimp

Doh! I linked the wrong discussion. I had seen some discussion lately on the PHP-DEV mailing list regarding php 5.5 and an RFC for deprecation and thought it was significant. I was not thorough in my search of new.php.net -- apparently the new discussion is not showing up there. It is here, however:
http://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg61839.html

apologies for half-baked warning.

bradgrafelman

I think this comment just about sums up my feelings about the matter:

Ulf Wendel wrote:
I am more than happy someone who is not paid by MySQL took the time to write an RFC.

I/we have been trying to sing the "stop using ext/mysql"-song since at least since 2006. We put ext/mysql in a (security) bug fix maintenance mode only years ago.

sneakyimp

Yes a lot of the discussion appears to be "go and die already." Seems to me this might be worth a sticky here?

traq

Regarding those comments which effectively argue that most users won't care anyway:

Those red boxes in the docs have made a difference - on this forum, and others I frequent, the fact that ext/mysql is no longer recommended is coming up in discussions far more often. Before that happened, it was apparent that almost no one knew that it wasn't the preferred (only!) API for MySQL.

If you stop to consider that the majority of users don't even know about the docs (they're learning from decade-old tutorials, many of which were inaccurate &| outdated when they were written), then formally deprecating the extension, and adding a Warning in PHP itself, can only be A Good Thing.

dalecosp

I'm not even sure most hosting companies know about the deprecation of mysql_ ... some of them, for example, are stuck in server versions < 5.1 and older PHP releases, too.

And then me, with more than a decade of PHP behind me ... I keep hitting the _ before the "i" all the time too ... purely from habit and memorized finger patterns.

sneakyimp

How about a sticky? It might save us a lot of breath in converting folks.