What best practices should be followed when implementing user online status functionality in PHP?

When implementing user online status functionality in PHP, it is important to regularly update a user's last activity timestamp in the database and check this timestamp to determine if the user is currently online. This can be achieved by setting a time limit within which a user is considered online based on their last activity time. 

// Update user's last activity timestamp in the database
function updateLastActivity($userId) {
    $currentTime = time();
    // Update the last_activity field in the users table for the given userId
    // Example SQL query: UPDATE users SET last_activity = $currentTime WHERE id = $userId
}

// Check if a user is currently online based on their last activity timestamp
function isUserOnline($lastActivity) {
    $onlineTimeLimit = 300; // 5 minutes in seconds
    $currentTime = time();
    
    if (($currentTime - $lastActivity) <= $onlineTimeLimit) {
        return true;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}

// Example of updating user's last activity timestamp
updateLastActivity(1);

// Example of checking if a user is online
$lastActivity = 1609459200; // Assuming the user's last activity timestamp is stored in the database
if (isUserOnline($lastActivity)) {
    echo "User is online";
} else {
    echo "User is offline";
}

Keywords

WebSocket AJAX session management real-time updates database queries

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