Wildcard Usage in PDO Prepared Statements

This inquiry seeks clarification on the feasibility of utilizing wildcards, specifically % for the LIKE clause, within PDO prepared statements.

Initially, unsuccessful attempts were made using bindParam. However, success was achieved upon switching to bindValue as follows:

$stmt = $dbh->prepare("SELECT * FROM `gc_users` WHERE `name` LIKE :name");
$stmt->bindValue(':name', '%' . $name . '%');
$stmt->execute();

Furthermore, the bindParam method can also be employed in this scenario with minor modifications:

$name = "%$name%";
$query = $dbh->prepare("SELECT * FROM `gc_users` WHERE `name` like :name");
$query->bindParam(':name', $name);
$query->execute();