I've been using the mysqli extension for some time now. There are
things I like about it and things that I don't like about it. But
first, about perpared statements. All they do is take some of the load
off of your database and move it to your web server. Prepared
statements "compile" the query before sending it off to the database to
run. Whether or not they will provide a performance increase on a
single query I think is hard to say. That depends on the load of your
DB and the load of your web server. If these boxes are one and the same
then I don't think you would notice any difference.
That being said, the idea of a prepared statement is much better than
just using string concatentation to build your queries. When I say
better I mean safer and increased data integrity. Parameter's can only
be put in predefined places, like the "where ID = ?". In addition when
you bind your parameters you specify the type of data that you are
using in each respective field. So if you try to put a string in a int
field, the bind will not work.
Some disadvantages I've found is with prepared statements are error
reporting. Errors in your queries don't appear all that often when you
call prepare(). While the function will return false, it won't always
give you any indication as to why it was false. Also, when you are
binding your results you must know the number of columns that your db
is going to return. So using "Select *" can be a bad idea because if
you add a DB column later, the number of columns will change and
bind_result() will fail because you haven't bound all the columns to
something. While this can be annoying, the right way to query your db
(especially if you are trying to optimize your db) is to only return
the columns that you need. This forces you to be a little more honest
when you are programming.
As for using mysqli, I would say there are no disadvantages. I don't
even remember what the regular mysql function set looks like anymore.
On nice thing about mysqli is the ability to start, commit and rollback
transactions without having to send a string to the database.
Lastly, if you are looking for a different DB connecter you might want
to look into PDO (PHP Data Objects) with offers a database abstraction
layer, prepared statements, exceptions and many more. More info can be
found here:
http://us2.php.net/pdo
ojorus wrote:
Hi!
Some questions regarding the mysqli-extension (php5)
1) Prepared statements: If I understand things right, prepared statements
will give better performance if you make several similar querys. (where you
only change the parameters) But what if you do only ONE query; will it then
be usefull to use prepared statements? Can it actuelly give better
performance NOT to use prepared statements in that case?
2) Are there any DISadvantages using the mysqli-extensions?
3) Are there any DISadvantages using prepared statements in general?
Thanks for your replies.
ojorus
