What are some best practices for efficiently managing forum post notifications in PHP?

When managing forum post notifications in PHP, it is important to efficiently handle notifications to ensure that users are informed about new posts without overwhelming them with excessive notifications. One best practice is to implement a notification system that allows users to customize their notification preferences, such as choosing to receive notifications for all new posts, only for posts they are following, or for posts in specific categories.

// Sample code for managing forum post notifications in PHP

// Function to send notification to user
function sendNotification($userId, $postId, $message) {
    // Code to send notification to user with specified message
}

// Function to check user's notification preferences
function checkNotificationPreferences($userId, $postId) {
    // Code to check user's notification preferences for the specified post
}

// Example usage
$userId = 123;
$postId = 456;
$message = "New post in the forum";

if(checkNotificationPreferences($userId, $postId)) {
    sendNotification($userId, $postId, $message);
}