How could I code this to make it more efficient

mband2000

Ok, I have a large member database... and members can check messages left in their inbox.

The message table looks something like this.

| id | fromID | toID | subject | message_text |

What I'm trying to do is send a mass message out to all the users... but I find it would be too much to Insert a row for EACH member so that the message can show in their inbox.

for example.. if I have 20,000 member... I would have to insert 20,000 rows into the message table.

Is there a better way to do this without inserting a row for each member?

bbreslauer

You could do a special toID of 0 or something, and change the frontend to check for the user's id or for 0. Or you could create another table for something like announcements, and have the frontend check both the message table and the announcements table.

mband2000

^that's a good idea.

The only problem would come in when a member tries to delete the message from their inbox. Then that row will be delete and no one will see the announcement.

mband2000

any other suggestions?

Drakla

I use a mixture of the two methods above. I have a 'virtual' mail table with tags in it like

Hello {name}

The tags are substituted when viewed. I then insert a blank email into the user table for each user with a code letting it know the mail is virtual - you could use the fromid as zero, and then have a reference to the id of the virtual message in one of the other fields. You do insert 20,000 rows, but the overhead is tiny. I also give virtual messages a deadline and after that they're swooped on and killed by Mr. Cron