PDO - can you handle identical prepared statements?

Dec 1, 2008 mysql php

This post is more than 18 months old. Since technology changes too rapidly, this content may be out of date (but that's not always the case). Please remember to verify any technical or programming information with the current release.

I’ve been wondering if I should be concerned about re-preparing a prepared statement when using PDO. Right now, I use code like this when preparing a statement:

public function prep($statement)
{
  if ($statement != $this->_lastPrepared) {
    /**
     * Store our clear text statement, and then our object
     */
    $this->_lastPrepared = $statement;
    $this->_ps = $this->db->prepare($statement);
  }
}

I end up storing the last statement and do a quick compare. My concern comes from MySQL’s admission of this: “If a prepared statement with the given name already exists, it is deallocated implicitly before the new statement is prepared.”

So, not knowing the internal workings of PDO, I wonder how they handle it. Do they…

Create each prepared statement with the same name, causing them to be deallocated each time
Create each one with a random name, so that there are never any deallocations unless you unset the statement?

Anyone have any insight?