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Forums - One table or two?

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 6:27 pm
by arpowers
Hey guys,
quick question...
is it better to have one db table or two in your design of forums?

I can see advantages to both approaches..

Thanks
Andrew

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 6:44 pm
by John Cartwright
Huh? Forums generally have far more than two tables. A couple off the top of my head:

categories
forums
threads
posts
posts_text (possibly)

Why don't you try explaining your questions a bit better, and perhaps describe these "advantages" of using one or two tables?

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 7:23 pm
by s.dot
When designing my forums, I had (besides the users table)

forums
forumtopics
forumentries

And I wish I would have had a forumentries_text table, to store the raw post data. I eventually got a solid way to reverse my custom bbcode, but it was a hassle to figure out.

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 8:08 pm
by yanglei1979
Two tables

threads and replies

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 12:20 am
by arpowers
Thanks for the replies...

sorry I should have clarified, but what I was looking for was the 'threads and replies' ...

I wasn't thinking about the table for forums and categories

thanks again.>.
Andrew

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:10 am
by John Cartwright
I'm curious to know what advantages you see between using a single table and multiple tables?

Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:04 am
by Kieran Huggins
One table is certainly possible. Might not be a bad idea for your first iteration see whats slow, if anything. I say go for it!