Viewing Thread:
"Forum Databse Structure"

Like it says on the tin. I need to design a database structure for a web forum and get it right.

Any links?

Tutorials on basic database design will be ignored.

No problem.

Cheers, that's pretty much what I worked out yesterday. The sticky boolean is something I missed, so that'll be put in. Cheers!

Okay here's a basic design that I used for a forum:

Boards
{
BoardID
BoardName
BoardDescription
PostNo
*LastUserID
LastDateTime
}

Threads
{
ThreadID
*BoardID
ThreadName
Locked
Sticky
*StartUserID
StartDateTime
*LastUserID
LastDateTime
}

Posts
{
PostID
*ThreadID
*UserID
PostContents
PostDateTime
}

Users
{
UserID
UserName
Password
First Name
Surname
DOB
etc
}

Think I've got most of the important stuff.
The stuff in Italics is optional but would be used to speed stuff up a bit as it wouldn't be needed to be calculated on the fly.

When I built a forum for my web site, I used one table for threads, and one for posts.

Each post is linked to a thread. I also cheated slightly to save effort by storing the last post date and last post author in the thread table - saves looking up in two tables.

*Sigh*

Tutorials I can get. I specifically needed a structure.

Thanks anyway.

[URL]http://www.tutorialized.com/[/URL]

I'm pretty sure Grix was programming a forum, if you could get hold of him he could point you in the direction of some tuts.

[URL]http://www.spoono.com/[/URL] << I think thats the correct addy for a site with a tut.

Like it says on the tin. I need to design a database structure for a web forum and get it right.

Any links?

Tutorials on basic database design will be ignored.