A historic PHP API family exposed functions beginning with mssql_, including connection management, result fetching, stored-procedure execution, and metadata inspection. That API is no longer suitable for modern PHP applications.
Mapping old ideas to new APIs
Legacy mssql_connect/mssql_query/mssql_fetch_assoc correspond conceptually to sqlsrv_connect/sqlsrv_query/sqlsrv_fetch_array or PDO connection, prepare, execute, and fetch methods. They are not drop-in replacements: argument types, error handling, and driver installation differ.
PDO example
$pdo = new PDO(
"sqlsrv:Server=localhost;Database=TrainingDB",
getenv("DB_USER"),
getenv("DB_PASSWORD"),
[PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION]
);
$stmt = $pdo->prepare(
"SELECT ProductID, ProductName FROM dbo.Products WHERE ProductID = ?"
);
$stmt->execute([12]);
$row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);Driver considerations
Select a driver release compatible with your PHP runtime and Microsoft’s ODBC driver, and verify encryption and certificate configuration. Use UTF-8 consistently and test date/time and decimal conversions.
Migration checklist
Inventory all mssql_ calls, identify stored procedures and output parameters, replace query concatenation with parameters, add error handling, and run regression tests against a staging database.
AI, sources and reuse: This is an AI-generated rewrite informed by the original Open Education post (#70087), with additional explanations and examples. The new article text may be copied, adapted, and republished with or without a reference to this site. Third-party resources and trademarks keep their own rights. AI can make mistakes. Verify version support, code correctness, and security practices against Microsoft documentation, and test with nonproduction data first.
