friends and community joining in php (conceptual)

[harsh00008]

Hi,
I need a help in script where users can add other users as their friends and they can join some communities like Facebook.

Now I just need to know one thing.
Would it be efficient if I make one common table with

---

| Main user | Other user |

| xyz | abc |

---

and then call like SELECT * FROM (the above table) WHERE main user=xyz

and correspondingly I show it in the main user's profile that abc is his friend?
What I thought was that if there are a million user, would it be inefficient or slow coz everytime it will check that table for all different users logged in simultaneously?

[dagon]

index main_user, and that would be how i would do it. you should also use user id not name, numbers index more efficiently.

[harsh00008]

dagon;10971390 wrote:

index main_user, and that would be how i would do it. you should also use user id not name, numbers index more efficiently.

Yeah ofcourse.I was just giving a conceptual with that table.So you would say that I should get going with the above given logic.Is it?

[cretaceous]

err.. I don't think Dagon's advice is correct or he may have misunderstood your query

I would have one table with all members details (nothing else in that table)
each member has a unique id of course

and then a second table with "relationships" which simply adds a pairing of two user ids

e.g. | user id who requested the friendship | user id who was asked to be friend | status (maybe 0 for not friend, 1 for friend) (or use words if you have to)

[dagon]

cretaceous, that's what we all agree (i think) one, table with relationships, other tables, well other stuff

[cretaceous]

yup my bad - I misread your answer Dagon