What potential pitfalls should PHP beginners be aware of when using Xampp with PHP 5 instead of PHP 4 for database operations?

When using Xampp with PHP 5 for database operations, beginners should be aware that PHP 5 introduced changes to the MySQL extension, which may cause compatibility issues with older MySQL databases. To solve this issue, beginners can switch to using the MySQLi extension or PDO for connecting to databases, as they offer more features and better security.

// Using MySQLi extension to connect to a MySQL database
$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);
}
echo "Connected successfully";