What are the implications of abandoning escape functions and queries during a switch to mysqli_ or PDO in terms of security and performance in PHP projects?

When switching to mysqli_ or PDO in PHP projects, abandoning escape functions and queries can lead to SQL injection vulnerabilities and decreased performance. To address this, it is important to use prepared statements with parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection attacks and improve performance by reducing the need for escaping special characters.

// Using prepared statements with parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection

// Connect to database using PDO
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=myDB", "username", "password");

// Prepare a statement
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username");

// Bind parameters
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);

// Execute the query
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch results
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();