Re: Need help planning my application (associations question)

Err, dunno why I put varchar(255) for those ids, they are obviously int
(10) instead

On Dec 1, 10:24 pm, boomswitch <boomswi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thanks for the response.
>
> So to clarify your first idea -- would my model associations look
> something like this?
>
> - Invitations belongTo Users (senders/creators).
> - Invitations haveAndBelongToMany Users (invitees)
> - Friends belongTo Users
>
> One issue I'm seeing with all this is invitees are often not
> registered users, but just a bunch of email addresses. Once they get
> the invite, they have to register, but does that change the
> associations or models much? I am thinking I could have an "active"
> field in my Users model/table that puts all fields to null except
> their email address, then when they hit the invite link and register
> their username/password, they become "active".
>
> I think this will all work right so long as the Friends belongTo Users
> association can be pulled off. I have a table right now that is
> similar to what you described, but it's like this
>
> user_id, varchar(255)
> friend_id, varchar(255)
>
> so if user 'john_doe' has user_id in the Users table of 1, and he has
> 3 friends with different user_ids, the table users_friends would look
> like:
>
> user_id  |  friend_id
> ==============
> 1           |  7
> 1           | 12
> 1           | 19
>
> and so on.
>
> Your ACL Groups idea is interesting. Any suggested reading for that
> 'generic' setup? Sounds more simplified, but I'm not sure how the
> database tables and model associations would compare to the first idea
> I've outlined.
>
> Thanks again
>
> On Dec 1, 1:04 pm, Rob <webwe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In a way, you're building groups similar to what you'd do for ACL.
>
> > Based on what you've outlined, I would just have the Invitations
> > belong to a User (sender), and HABTM Users (invitees), and then have
> > another relationship for "Friends" that would belong to a User, and
> > contain the Users that are "Friends".
>
> > That said, you could also go for a more generic approach like is used
> > for ACL, and have Users and Groups, where there is a HABTM between
> > Users and Groups, and then have one Group that would be "Friends" of a
> > User, and another group that would be the "Invitees" for an event.
>
> > You need the join table if the relationship is going to be many-to-
> > many, you can accomplish the same thing without the join table if you
> > denormalize the keys back into the other table (which is typically
> > what you want for one-to-many or one-to-one sorts of relationships).
>
> > For example, you could have your "Friends" table include a foreign-key
> > for owner_user_id (owner) and another for user_id (friends), which
> > would result in one row in the "Friends" table for each User that is a
> > "Friend". Really depends on the volume of data and how normalized you
> > want to make your data model IMHO.
>
> > On Nov 30, 5:24 pm, boomswitch <boomswi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Hi all,
>
> > > New here, new to CakePHP, but loving it so far.
>
> > > I'm working on planning a basic invitation application, but I'm
> > > struggling with how to plan my database and some model associations.
>
> > > A few things about my current setup:
>
> > > - CakePHP 1.2-latest, Apache, MySQL
> > > - I have a working User (authentication) model
>
> > > For this invitation system, there are a few seemingly simple
> > > requirements that I'm struggling to design properly within Cake:
>
> > > - Users can invite Friends to events.
> > > - Users can invite Users to events.
> > > - Friends are registered users that Users have added to their Friends
> > > list.
>
> > > In other words, all persons invited to an event are registered users.
> > > However, some are marked Friends and some aren't. How can I relate
> > > this all properly to the User model? I think I have a few of these
> > > right, but I'm wondering if there's a better way to keep Friends Lists
> > > and also associate both Friends and non-Friends (Users) to
> > > Invitations.
>
> > > - Invitations "belongTo" a User (the creator/owner).
> > > - User "hasMany" Invitations.
> > > - Invitations have many invitees which can be Friends or non-Friends
> > > -- all of which are Users.
>
> > > How do I store my list of all the invitees for an Invitation? Would I
> > > need an  Aquaintances model (for non-Friends that are invited) with an
> > > hasAndBelongsToMany association and use a join table in MySQL? Or
> > > would there be a simpler design...
>
> > > Currently, I've got a working Friends List by using a join table that
> > > stores user_id and friend_id.
>
> > > All feedback is greatly appreciated, be gentle, I'm new to PHP and
> > > specifically CakePHP. :)
>
> > > Thanks!
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CakePHP" group.
To post to this group, send email to cake-php@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cake-php+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cake-php?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---