CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpmysqlsqldatabase-designmessaging
trerums
trerums

Reputation: 397

Query for private messaging system

I'm making private messaging system using mysql. Created this tables:

1) users (id, name)
2) messages(id, text, created)
3) user_has_messages(id, user_id, message_id, is_sender)

Table user_has_messages stores messaging history, so there are 2 rows(for "sender" user and for "receiver" user.) per 1 message. 2 rows per message because sender should see his message even if receiver deleted it. So i need to fetch list of all dialogs for concrete user with last message in it. It should be easier to understend if you take a look a this pic: Explanation

The problem is that i cannot construct a proper query for this task. Maybe bad db design?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1658

Answers (2)

trerums
trerums

Reputation: 397

Looks like this query is what i need:

SELECT * FROM users_has_messages uhm1 
WHERE uhm1.message_id=(
       SELECT message_id FROM users_has_messages uhm2 
       WHERE (uhm1.receiver_id=uhm2.receiver_id AND uhm1.sender_id=uhm2.sender_id) 
       OR uhm1.receiver_id=uhm2.sender_id ORDER BY message_id DESC limit 1) 
AND user_id=1

Upvotes: 1

Tony Andrews
Tony Andrews

Reputation: 132710

I believe the database design may be wrong, because if the recipient deletes his message (by deleting the user_has_messages row) then the sender can no longer see who they sent it to - information is lost.

If a message always has one sender and one recipient, then I would have the tables like:

1) users (id, name)
2) messages(id, text, created, sender_id, recipient_id,
            deleted_by_sender, deleted_by_recipient)

Even with this simplified design the SQL for your requirement is a bit complicated:

select m.recipient_id, m.text
from messages m
where m.sender_id = ?
and m.created = (select max(created)
                 from messages m2
                 where m2.sender_id = m.sender_id
                 and m2.recipient_id = m.recipient_id
                 and m2.deleted_by_sender = 0
                 and m2.deleted_by_recipient = 0);

(and that assumes that (sender_id, recipient_id, created) is a unique key).

Upvotes: 0

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