php forum help...

[runelore]

Hi I am making a forum, what I have is a database structure as follows..

The forum Board (database/mysql)
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The topics.. (tables).
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the replies .. (results with the topic/table).

No what I want to know is how do I find the last updated reply dynamically so that I can say "last post was by blah blah on blah blah". I am note sure how to get PHP to search a DB for the last updated record ith out telling it a specific table name.. please help....

[planetsim]

Normally id have the threads table have this

lastpostusername
lastposttime
lastpostuserid - The users identification

And they just get updated when someone posts a new reply. A lot easier than a second method.

Which would be to get all the posts from that thread, and find the last post by time. Itd take a long time to do.

[runelore]

I se, so every time someone posts a new reply the threads table updates?? is that what you mean....

So if I post a reply it updates that thread as well as updating the table that holds the last post details...

thanks, sounds good... If I have understood you correctly.