This seems like a relevant time to have a discussion on the merits of PDO vs mysqli. Help all those who need to get off of ext/mysql make an intelligent decision on where to go next.
I'm less interested in features (data layer abstraction) and more interested in performance and security concerns.
> I'm less interested in features (data layer abstraction) and more interested in performance and security concerns.
They both offer the same security (though I believe mysqli offers more rope to hang yourself with, and PDO's API is simpler and smaller).
In the past, mysqli had the performance edge. It's probably still the case, since PDO is db-independent (PHP bundles a dozen of PDO db drivers in the standard distro) whereas mysqli is db-specific. Mysqli will also offer access to more db-specific features if mysql.
PDO has ditched the procedural style entirely (no PHP4 compat), has a smaller API and lets you use the same API for different DBs (across projects, so you'll hit a MySQL and a Postgres db using roughly the same query API).
Sorry if this is a silly question but where does MDB2 fit into all this? http://pear.php.net/package/MDB2 It looks like it uses mysqli already, is it superseded by PDO?
I'm less interested in features (data layer abstraction) and more interested in performance and security concerns.