How can the approach of deleting older entries from the "read" table impact the overall functionality and user experience of the forum?

Deleting older entries from the "read" table can impact the overall functionality and user experience of the forum by potentially causing users to lose track of their read posts. To solve this issue, you can implement a system that keeps track of the last read post for each user, rather than deleting older entries. 

// Update the "read" table with the last read post for each user
$user_id = 1; // Example user ID
$post_id = 123; // Example post ID

// Check if the user has previously read this post
$existing_read = $db->query("SELECT * FROM read WHERE user_id = $user_id AND post_id = $post_id")->fetch_assoc();

if($existing_read) {
    // Update the existing entry
    $db->query("UPDATE read SET last_read = NOW() WHERE user_id = $user_id AND post_id = $post_id");
} else {
    // Insert a new entry
    $db->query("INSERT INTO read (user_id, post_id, last_read) VALUES ($user_id, $post_id, NOW())");
}

Keywords

database optimization SQL queries performance user engagement forum functionality

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