MySQL friends table

Question

I have a MySQL DB in which I store data about each user.

I would like to add a list of friends for each user. Should I create a table of friends for each user in the

Answer 1

You are looking for M-to-N or many-to-many join table.

Table Users:

USER_ID  integer primary key,
NAME     varchar

Table Friendships

USER_ID    integer not null,
FRIEND_ID  integer not null,

Both USER_ID and FRIEND_ID are foreign keys that reference Users table (Users.user_id).

If user 123 is friend of user 921. Add row (123, 921) to Friendships table.