Messaging system in php mysql

I think you can keep your current table structure for the message content. Rather than adding on separate columns or deleted flags, you'd be better off having a separate table for mailboxes.

So your current mbox table:

id   message    sentby   sentto    created

Then another table for user_mailboxes

id   user    mailbox    message_id

You'd have to do three total inserts when writing a message, one to the message table, on for each user in the user_mailboxes table.

So your mbox data looks like this:

id   message     sentby    sentto    created 
1    Hi There    UserA     UserB     2015-01-26
2    Hello Back  UserB     UserA     2015-01-26

And user_mailboxes data would look like this:

id   user        mailbox   message_id
1    UserA       Out       1
2    UserB       In        1
3    UserB       Out       2
4    UserA       In        2

This allows you to delete individual rows for the user_mailboxes table. This would also allow for future add-ons by allowing you to send messages to multiple users at the same time (A new row for each user), and allow you to add more than one mailbox if needed (In, Out, Trash, Important, etc).

To look up the mail for a user for a particular mailbox, you'd just use a join

SELECT * FROM user_mailboxes LEFT JOIN mbox ON mbox.id = user_mailboxes.message_id WHERE user_mailboxes.user = "$user" AND user_mailboxes.mailbox = "Out";

You'd need a clean up script as you delete to make sure there are no orphaned messages that do not exist in the user_mailboxes table.

Just do one thing add two new fields in your existing table

1. is_sender_deleted
2. is_receiver_deleted

If someone delete it from outbox then make is_sender_deleted value to 1. So when you show data in outbox you just list all the records whose having is_sender_deleted field value 0.

Same situation ff someone delete it from inbox then make is_receiver_deleted value 1. So when show data in inbox you just list all the records whose having is_receiver_deleted value is 0.

Hope this solution helps you out.

I also solved this task. I think one table it is not useful in this case. So, i suggest use 2 tables:

CREATE TABLE `message` (
  `id`       int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `subject`  varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `body`     text NOT NULL,
  `date`     datetime NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

CREATE TABLE `message_user` (
  `id`           int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `message_id`   int(11) NOT NULL,
  `user_id`      int(11) NOT NULL,
  `interlocutor` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
  `folder`       enum('inbox','sent') NOT NULL,
  `starmark`     tinyint(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `unread`       tinyint(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT '1',
  `deleted`      enum('none','trash','deleted') NOT NULL DEFAULT 'none',
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  CONSTRAINT `message_user_user_fk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`message_id`)   REFERENCES `message` (`id`) ON UPDATE CASCADE,
  CONSTRAINT `message_user_user_fk_2` FOREIGN KEY (`user_id`)      REFERENCES `user`    (`id`) ON UPDATE CASCADE,
  CONSTRAINT `message_user_user_fk_3` FOREIGN KEY (`interlocutor`) REFERENCES `user`    (`id`) ON UPDATE CASCADE
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

I think it can fix all of your issues, because message users separated from each other

So, for one message we must create 3 inserts like this:

public static function createMessage($subject, $body, $source, $sender_id, $receiver_id)
{
    // save DATA to message table      ($subject, $body, $source)
    // save DATA to message_user table ($message_id, $sender_id, $receiver_id, 'sent')
    // save DATA to message_user table ($message_id, $receiver_id, $sender_id, 'inbox')
}

In this case for every user we create separated row in table message_user. So, when user_1 delete message in this inbox folder we mark it as 'deleted' and has no effect on the second user.

So, that get all user messages we must run only simple SELECT like this:

SELECT *
FROM message m
    JOIN message_user mu
    ON m.id = mu.message_id
WHERE mu.deleted = 'none'
    AND mu.user_id = :user_id