What are the potential pitfalls of using deprecated MySQL functions in PHP code and how can they be avoided?

Using deprecated MySQL functions in PHP code can lead to security vulnerabilities and compatibility issues with newer versions of MySQL. To avoid this, developers should switch to using MySQLi or PDO extensions for interacting with MySQL databases. These newer extensions provide more secure and reliable ways to work with MySQL databases in PHP.

// Deprecated MySQL function
$connection = mysql_connect('localhost', 'username', 'password');
mysql_select_db('database_name', $connection);

// Updated code using MySQLi
$connection = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'username', 'password', 'database_name');
if (!$connection) {
    die('Connection failed: ' . mysqli_connect_error());
}