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As for the values of the users in one column, it's fine just split them up by a character not allowed in usernames, something like | or • and then just explode it. I suppose it could get big, but your other method would be to store in the user table which is totally pointless.
I know but I wanted to avoid that which is why I thought up and put together the code in my previous post. What do you think of the theory in my previous post it seems you have completely ignored it?
You are doing what I suggested, only not showing the function which gets the topic views, which I assume are stored in the database.
I'm not really doing what you suggested. :P I have an entire new table which logs each topic view, it's based on your idea but is more structured and manageable and you actually can keep the data for future use. Also with your idea you would have to do more update queries where as with my method you are only ever doing 1 query, a small insert every time someone views a topic.
With my idea all you do is update the row with a new username, with yours you have a massive table. Mine is just more efficient :P
But it's ugly. :)