What are the potential risks of using outdated mysql_* functions in PHP and what are the recommended alternatives?

Using outdated mysql_* functions in PHP poses security risks as they are deprecated and no longer maintained, making them vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. It is recommended to switch to mysqli or PDO for database operations in PHP as they offer better security features and support prepared statements to prevent SQL injection.

// Using mysqli for database operations
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "database";

// Create connection
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

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

// Example query using prepared statement
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = ?");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $username);

$username = "example_username";
$stmt->execute();

$result = $stmt->get_result();

while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
    // Do something with the data
}

$stmt->close();
$conn->close();