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Greetings PHP geeks,

Don't panic! This is not a proposal to add errors or remove this popular extension. \ Not yet anyway, because it's too popular to do that now.

The documentation team is discussing the database security situation, and educating \ users to move away from the commonly used ext/mysql extension is part of this.

This proposal only deals with education, and requests permission to officially \ convince people to stop using this old extension. This means:

- Add notes that refer to it as deprecated - Recommend and link alternatives - Include examples of alternatives

There are two alternative extensions: pdo_mysql and mysqli, with PDO being the PHP \ way and main focus of future endeavors. Right? Please don't digress into the PDO v2 \ fiasco here.

What this means to ext/mysql:

- Softly deprecate ext/mysql with education (docs) starting today - Not adding E_DEPRECATED errors in 5.4, but revisit for 5.5/6.0 - Add pdo_mysql examples within the ext/mysql docs that mimic the current examples, but occasionally introduce features like prepared statements - Focus energy on cleaning up the pdo_mysql and mysqli documentation - Create a general "The MySQL situation" document that explains the situation

The PHP community has been recommending alternatives for several years now, so \ hopefully this won't be a new concept or shock to most users.

Regards, Philip