What are some common methods for tracking user activity and post updates in a PHP forum?

One common method for tracking user activity in a PHP forum is to use session variables to store information about the user's actions, such as when they last logged in or posted a message. To post updates in the forum, you can use a combination of PHP and SQL queries to retrieve and display the latest posts or threads. 

// Tracking user activity
session_start();
if(isset($_SESSION['user_id'])) {
    // Update last login time in the database
    $user_id = $_SESSION['user_id'];
    $last_login = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');
    // Execute SQL query to update last login time
}

// Displaying latest posts in the forum
// Connect to the database
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Retrieve latest posts from the database
$sql = "SELECT * FROM posts ORDER BY post_date DESC LIMIT 10";
$result = $conn->query($sql);

// Display the latest posts
if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        echo "Post Title: " . $row["title"]. " - Author: " . $row["author"]. "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "No posts found";
}
$conn->close();

Keywords

User activity tracking Post updates PHP forum Logging Notifications

Related Questions