What are some best practices for creating a server overview for an IRC server using PHP?

When creating a server overview for an IRC server using PHP, it is important to display key information such as the number of users, channels, and server uptime. To achieve this, you can use PHP to connect to the IRC server and retrieve the necessary data using the IRC protocol.

<?php
$server = "irc.example.com";
$port = 6667;
$channel = "#example";

$socket = fsockopen($server, $port);
fwrite($socket, "NAMES $channel\r\n");

$users = fgets($socket);
fclose($socket);

echo "Users in $channel: $users";
?>