Modeling Friendship Relationships

From: Robert DiFalco <robert(dot)difalco(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: "pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org" <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Modeling Friendship Relationships
Date: 2014-11-11 22:38:16
Message-ID: CAAXGW-ymv31Hh2m6LyKQ-46_W5v3F78ta0fZ+mJRdvn7OPTidA@mail.gmail.com
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I have a question about modeling a mutual relationship. It seems basic but
I can't decide, maybe it is 6 of one a half dozen of the other.

In my system any user might be friends with another user, that means they
have a reciprocal friend relationship.

It seems I have two choices for modeling it.

1. I have a table with two columns userOne and userTwo. If John is friends
with Jane there will be one row for both of them.
2. I have a table with two columns owner and friend. If John is friends
with Jane there will be two rows, one that is {John, Jane} and another
{Jane, John}.

The first option has the advantage of saving table size. But queries are
more complex because to get John's friends I have to JOIN friends f ON
f.userA = "John" OR f.userB = "John" (not the real query, these would be
id's but you get the idea).

In the second option the table rows would be 2x but the queries would be
simpler -- JOIN friends f ON f.owner = "John".

There could be >1M users. Each user would have <200 friends.

Thoughts? Do I just choose one or is there a clear winner? TIA!

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