What are some potential pitfalls to be aware of when implementing a system to reload a page based on database changes in PHP?

One potential pitfall to be aware of when implementing a system to reload a page based on database changes in PHP is the risk of excessive server load if the page is constantly being reloaded. To mitigate this issue, you can implement a polling mechanism that checks for database changes at regular intervals instead of reloading the page every time a change occurs. 

// Check for database changes every 5 seconds
while(true) {
    $lastModifiedTime = filemtime('path/to/database/file.txt');
    
    if($lastModifiedTime > $_SESSION['lastModifiedTime']) {
        $_SESSION['lastModifiedTime'] = $lastModifiedTime;
        // Reload the page
        header("Location: ".$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
        exit();
    }
    
    sleep(5);
}

Keywords

polling database triggers long polling websockets server-sent events

Related Questions