What are the potential pitfalls of using outdated MySQL functions in PHP for database interactions?

Using outdated MySQL functions in PHP for database interactions can lead to security vulnerabilities, compatibility issues, and deprecated functionality. It is recommended to use modern MySQLi or PDO extensions for database interactions in PHP to ensure better security, performance, and compatibility with newer versions of PHP and MySQL.

// Connect to MySQL using MySQLi
$mysqli = new mysqli('localhost', 'username', 'password', 'database');

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

// Perform a query using prepared statements
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ?");
$stmt->bind_param("i", $id);
$id = 1;
$stmt->execute();
$result = $stmt->get_result();

// Fetch data
while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
    echo $row['username'] . "<br>";
}

// Close connection
$mysqli->close();