What are the limitations of using PHP to display real-time online user activity on a website?

One limitation of using PHP to display real-time online user activity on a website is that PHP is a server-side language, meaning it does not have the capability to push data to the client in real-time without the use of additional technologies like WebSockets or AJAX. To overcome this limitation, you can implement a solution using AJAX to periodically fetch the latest user activity data from the server and update the webpage dynamically. 

// PHP code to fetch real-time user activity data using AJAX

// server-side script to fetch user activity data
// fetch_user_activity.php
<?php
// query database or fetch user activity data from another source
$userActivityData = "User activity data fetched from database or another source";
echo json_encode($userActivityData);
?>

// client-side script to update user activity on the webpage
// update_user_activity.js
<script>
function updateUserActivity() {
  $.ajax({
    url: 'fetch_user_activity.php',
    type: 'GET',
    dataType: 'json',
    success: function(data) {
      // update user activity data on the webpage
      $('#user-activity').html(data);
    }
  });
}

// update user activity every 5 seconds
setInterval(updateUserActivity, 5000);
</script>

<!-- HTML element to display user activity -->
<div id="user-activity"></div>

Keywords

PHP real-time online user activity limitations website

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