2. So if I were to call prepare_cached() within the condition (so I'm not preparing the statement if I don't need it, since there are multiple ones), you're saying that I don't need to call finish() on it?
I seem to remember getting errors if I don't call the finish() on my statements... are you saying that as long as I fetch all the returned rows on either a prepare() or a prepare_cached(), I don't need to use a finish()?
I'd assume it's still best practice to use a finish()?