title: What is the difference between MySQLi and PDO?
body: <p>I have recently started learning PHP. I came to know that there has been many changes and SQL is now being avoided and has been replaced by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQLi" rel="nofollow">MySQLi</a>, but then I came to know about PDO. I have gone through many posts about these two topics, but everyone has their own opinion and I am confused. Many posts have said that MySQLi supports procedural and object oriented method whereas PDO supports only an object-oriented method.</p>
  
  <p>What I want to know is that:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>Are these two (PDO and MySQLi) just two different ways of doing the same thing or are they different from each other?</p></li>
  <li><p>If they are just two different ways to do the same thing then what is the difference between them and which one is a better way to perform the task?</p></li>
  <li><p>If learning MySQLi, which one is better method between object-oriented and procedural?</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>For some it may seem to be a broad question, but I would be highly obliged if anyone can give specific answer for these three questions.</p>