data flow for social networking site

[anujgarg]

Hi

 

I am about to build a social networking concept in my site. Please tell me the work flow and data flow in the back end.

 

How can one person establish networks with multiple persons?

 

Should I take more than 1 table for this purpose?

If no, then how can I maintain the relationships between USER IDs?

 

Though, the logic is clear; but I am getting confused before starting on my own.

 

TIA

Anuj

[waynew]

Have a user table. Each user has a user_id of course. Then, set up a comments table, for example. The comments table could look something like this:

 

Comment

comment_id

sender_id

receiver_id

comment_body

timestamp

 

When the user posts a comment to another user, simply place his user_id (which you should probably place inside his or her session) inside the sender_id column and place the user_id of the person who is due to receive the comment inside the column, receiver_id. Hope that kind of helps?

 

Just link everything back to the user_id.

 

Each user could have his or her own profile page.

 

profile.php?user_id=whatever

[anujgarg]

Thanks waynewex for the reply....

 

But I think I need to elaborate my query. All I want to do is to create a Friends Network like Orkut. In such a way, I would have to manage the entire tree structure of the (database) network.

How can I follow from the root to the last node of the tree to manage the mutual friends (as it happens in Orkut)?

 

Please suggest...

 

TIA

Anuj