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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-15T10:19:33+00:00

I am trying to model friendships using the Parse.com javascript API (essentially backbone models).

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I am trying to model friendships using the Parse.com javascript API (essentially backbone models). I am using the built in Parse.com User Class. I have a mySQL / relational DB model background, and finding it tricky changing my thinking to a non-sql / denormalized way.

It should support the standard facebook style methods:
– user a can request user b’s friendship
– user b can accept or ignore the friendship request

For a given user I want to be able to fetch a collection of their friends (accepted friendships in both directions).

I had been considering using a Friendships model and referencing the user models as initiators and acceptors:

initiator | acceptor | status
==========+==========+========
user a    | user b   | accepted
user b    | user c   | 
user c    | user a   | accepted

I am unsure if this is the best way, and also unsure about securing it with ACLs. I am concerned that both users in a friendship will need to be able to update the row – in order to remove a friendship. Also, user b should not be able to make requests to the Parse API that would reveal another user’s friendships.

To query for a user a’s friends I would do two queries, one for where user a is the acceptor, and one for the initiator.

Can someone please comment if this is an acceptable way to model this, or if not why not and suggest improvements.
Thanks!

Update 8/8/12:
A problem I see here:
If I set an ACL on each row in the Friendships Class so the initiator may write the row, and it is publicly readable – then the acceptor will not be able to update the row to status = accepted.

Could a friendship be modeled as two rows in the table?
eg:

initiator | acceptor | status
==========+==========+========
user a    | user b   | requested
user b    | user a   | accepted

No idea how I would query that to get a given user’s friends however!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I decided to implement this with Parse CloudCode to simplify the data security, and lock down all client write access to the Friend class.

    I have three cloud code functions… friendRequest, friendDelete, friendAccept. These functions operate with the master key for doing all write-operations on the friend class. Read ACLs are added to each row for both users in the friendship – so you can only view your own friendships.

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