What are the potential pitfalls of using mysql_fetch_object in PHP, and what are alternative methods?

Using mysql_fetch_object in PHP can be problematic because it directly fetches a row from a MySQL result set as an object, which can make the code less readable and harder to maintain. An alternative method is to use mysqli_fetch_object or PDO fetchObject, which provide more flexibility and better support for object-oriented programming practices.

// Using mysqli_fetch_object
$query = "SELECT * FROM table";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

while ($row = mysqli_fetch_object($result)) {
    // Process the row as an object
}

// Using PDO fetchObject
$query = "SELECT * FROM table";
$stmt = $pdo->query($query);

while ($row = $stmt->fetchObject()) {
    // Process the row as an object
}