What are the best practices for combining PHP and JavaScript to achieve real-time updates in a web application?

To achieve real-time updates in a web application using PHP and JavaScript, one common approach is to use AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to send requests to the server and update the content dynamically without refreshing the page. This allows for seamless communication between the client-side JavaScript and server-side PHP scripts, enabling real-time updates without disrupting the user experience.

// PHP code snippet for handling AJAX requests
if(isset($_POST['data'])) {
    // Process the data received from the client-side JavaScript
    $data = $_POST['data'];
    
    // Perform any necessary database operations or calculations
    
    // Return the updated data back to the client-side JavaScript
    echo json_encode($updatedData);
}