What are the potential pitfalls of using outdated PHP functions like mysql_* in current PHP versions?

Using outdated PHP functions like mysql_* in current PHP versions can lead to security vulnerabilities and compatibility issues. These functions have been deprecated since PHP 5.5 and removed in PHP 7.0, so using them can result in errors or unexpected behavior. To address this, it is recommended to switch to modern alternatives like MySQLi or PDO for database operations.

// Using MySQLi for database operations
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

// Check connection
if ($mysqli->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $mysqli->connect_error);
}