How to implement the feature of staying logged in on a PHP website?

To implement the function of keeping users logged in on a PHP website, you can follow these steps:

1. Create a login page: Design a login page with input forms for both username and password, alongside a submit button.
2. Verify user input: After submitting the form on the login page, use PHP code to check if the entered username and password are correct. You can compare the username and password with the user information stored in the database.
3. To initiate a session: If the user’s username and password are verified, you can use PHP’s session management to create a session. Use the session_start() function to start the session, and store the user’s information in the $_SESSION variable.
4. To enable the feature of staying logged in, a marker called “loggedin” (or another suitable name) can be set to true when creating a session to indicate that the user is logged in.
5. Check login status: On every page where login status needs to be maintained, you can check if the user is already logged in at the beginning of the PHP code on the page. You can determine the user’s login status by checking the “loggedin” flag set earlier. If the user is logged in, continue with the subsequent actions; if the user is not logged in, redirect them to the login page.
6. Logout Feature: If users want to log out, a logout function can be provided. This function can destroy the session and set the “loggedin” tag to false.

It is important to remember that, in order to ensure security, proper validation and filtering of user-submitted usernames and passwords should be conducted to prevent security issues such as database injection. Additionally, encryption algorithms can be used to securely store user passwords.