Good news for LAMP (Linux, Apache, Mysql & PHP)programmer, there is a new alternative way to connect PHP and MySQL, mysqlnd (MySQL native driver). It is an alternative driver to libmysql we are currently using.
The good thing about this driver is it’s licensed under PHP license and it’s developed by MySQL developer for PHP group until it reach the stabil version. So hopefully this will improve MySQL+PHP connection.
Current version is still in alpha and it requires PHP 6. But as Uber Nixnutz said, future versions of mysqlnd will also support PHP 5. Once the missing core functionality between PHP 5 and PHP 6 has been implemented.
“The performance of some functions has been improved. We have measured considerable performance improvements, for example when fetching buffered result sets.”
Sounds good. But no timeline has been mentioned for the PHP 5 version release yet I believe.