Question

Backgroun: I’m trying to build a private messaging system in Mysql with conv view.

I have a msg_received tbl which looks like this

id   from_member_id  to_member_id   message_id
1    123                 456               101
2    456                 123               102
3    123                 456               103
4    456                 123               103

So when userA (id: 123) views his conv history; he sees the 2 messages he has sent to userB (id:456) and and 2 messages he has received from userB (id: 456). So he sees a total of 4 messages. Same for userB; he sees a total of 4 messages.

The problem is that I would like to allow userA to delete one of those messages. Lets say that he wants to delete msg_id 103. So now userA only sees 3 messages.

The problem is that when userB tries to view the conv history; he also sees only 3 messages instead of the 4 that he should. This is because he hasn’t deleted any messages and expects to see the full history.

Can you guys provide any tips?

Answer 1

Add 2 flags: deleted_by_sender and deleted_by_recipient.

When only one user “deleted” – set up approproate flag. When both flags = 1 – delete the record physically.

Also – now you’ll need to add AND deleted_by_recipient = 0 condition to your WHERE