In the context of an Android app using PHP, what are some alternative methods to sessions for passing user IDs securely?

When passing user IDs securely in an Android app using PHP, an alternative method to sessions is to use JSON Web Tokens (JWT). JWTs are tokens that contain encoded information, including the user ID, which can be securely passed between the client and server. This method eliminates the need for server-side storage of session data and provides a way to authenticate and authorize users without the need for server-side sessions.

// Generate JWT token with user ID
$userId = 123;
$secretKey = 'your_secret_key';
$token = JWT::encode(['user_id' => $userId], $secretKey);

// Decode JWT token on server-side
$decoded = JWT::decode($token, $secretKey, ['HS256']);
$userID = $decoded->user_id;

// Use $userID for authentication and authorization