Add forum feature php application

i would approach this pretty much as you would a shopping cart.

instead of storing mass amounts of info in the db, store references to threads in the db.

example:

CREATE TABLE `thread`
(`threadId` int(11) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY auto_increment,
`threadTitle` varchar(255) not null,
`threadDate` date());

CREATE TABLE `thread_messages`
(`messageId` int(11) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY auto_increment,
`messageThread` int(11) not null,
`messageDate` date(),
`messageData` TEXT,
`messageUser` varchar(255) not null);

to read thread #17:

SELECT t.threadTitle, t.threadDate,
m.messageId, m.messageThread,
m.messageDate, m.messageData,
m.messageUser
FROM thread t, thread_messages m
WHERE t.threadId = '17'
AND t.threadId = m.messageThread
ORDER BY m.messageDate
ASC

this will grab all posts that correspond to thread #17 and put them in a query for you to do whatever with. obviously variables can be users instead of constants, such as the threadId = 17 and what not. let me know if you need more info about any specific detail.

good luck, let me know how it works out,

-tim