setting up a friend list in mysql

Question

I want to make a friends list in my online game. I am not sure how to set it up or where to start. The add friends and accept friends part I can handle, but I don\'t know how to

Answer 1

A friendship is essentially a mutual relationship between two people. In database terms it's a many-to-many relationship between two users.

So what you need is a linking table that holds references to two users by ID.

Example

Users table

ID    Username
1     Bob
2     Jim
3     Alice

Friends table

user1    user2
1        2
2        3

This would make Bob friends Jim and Jim friends with Alice.