PDO MySQL: Use PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES or not?

Question

This is what I\'ve read so far about PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES:

1. PDO\'s prepare emulation is better for performance since MySQL\'s native prepare bypasses the

Answer 1

Beware on disabling PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES (turning native prepares on) when your PHP pdo_mysql is not compiled against mysqlnd.

Because old libmysql is not fully compatible with some functions, it can lead to strange bugs, for example:

1. Losing most significant bits for 64bit integers when binding as PDO::PARAM_INT ( 0x12345678AB will be cropped to 0x345678AB on 64bit machine )
2. Inability to make simple queries like LOCK TABLES ( it throws SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 2030 This command is not supported in the prepared statement protocol yet exception )
3. Need to fetch all rows from result or close cursor before next query ( with mysqlnd or emulated prepares it automatically does this work for you and doesn't go out of sync with mysql server )

These bugs I figured out in my simple project when migrated to other server which used libmysql for pdo_mysql module. Maybe there are much more bugs, I don't know. Also I tested on fresh 64bit debian jessie, all listed bugs occur when I apt-get install php5-mysql, and disappear when I apt-get install php5-mysqlnd.

When PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES is set to true (as default) - these bugs don't happen anyway, because PDO doesn't use prepared statements at all in this mode. So, if you use pdo_mysql based on libmysql ("mysqlnd" substring does't appear in "Client API version" field of pdo_mysql section in phpinfo) - you should not turn PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES off.