Question

I have 3 tables

friends
posts
members

friends
========
id, to, from (user_id's), status

there are 3 status's -1 = denied, 0 = no response/new, 1 = accepted



posts
=======
p_id, user_id (same as member_id), text


members
========
member_id, f_name, l_name

If like to select the text from the post in ‘posts’ combine it with the users name from ‘members’ and only display posts where the user_id is in the ‘friends’ table.

I would like to know if it can be done, I’ve tried an IN () statement in my query which worked, but it creates a new problem with generating the csv inside the IN (). I’d perfer to do this through mysql, but if it can’t be done I may use a global variable to store friend data (but then it will not be upto date or will have to be refreshed when a user gets a new friend).

Answer 1

As I understand it, you want to find the name and posts of all your friends, not any friend that’s in the friend table at all…?

Your own user id being in $myId, this should do it (newest posts first);

EDIT: Added status check for friends

SELECT m.f_name, m.l_name, p.`text`
FROM members m
JOIN posts p 
  ON m.member_id = p.user_id
JOIN friends f 
  ON f.`to` = m.member_id OR f.`from` = m.member_id
WHERE (f.`from` = $myId OR f.`to`= $myId)
  AND f.`status` = 1 AND m.member_id <> $myId
ORDER BY p.p_id DESC