# Self-Linking a model or users follow users

**URL:** <https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/self-linking-a-model-or-users-follow-users/7601>\
**Category:** Need Help\
**Created:** [April 5, 2020, 8:23pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/self-linking-a-model-or-users-follow-users/7601 "2020-04-05T20:23:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Gravitox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@Gravitox](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/Gravitox)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 8:23pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/self-linking-a-model-or-users-follow-users/7601/1 "2020-04-05T20:23:04Z")

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Hello CakePHP community

I have an understanding question about linking models if my reasoning is correct at all.

As in most applications, I want to give users the opportunity to register. So I have a users table. Since I want to separate the user from the profile, I have a separate profiles table with a users-\> hasOne (‘Profile’) association.

What I want to implement now is a “Follow” function like in Facebook, …, etc. Since here basically one user follows the other, a followers table / model doesn’t make sense to me. But if I’m right, according to CakePHP this is a many to many relationship. So I need a users, followers and followers\_users table. However, since the followers table would only be a “copy” of the user table, this would be unnecessary redundant data.

So my question is on the one hand how I correctly create this in the database (tables) and on the other hand how I correctly set the relationships in the model (s).

Thanks in advance!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zuluru](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.cakephp.org/zuluru/32/1230_2.png) [@Zuluru](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/Zuluru)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 10:34pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/self-linking-a-model-or-users-follow-users/7601/2 "2020-04-05T22:34:46Z")

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In your Users table (untested, but should be very close):

```auto
$this->belongsToMany('Following', [
	'className' => 'Users',
	'joinTable' => 'following_users',
	'foreignKey' => 'user_id', // the user doing the following
	'targetForeignKey' => 'following_id', // the user they are following
]);
```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gravitox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@Gravitox](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/Gravitox)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2020, 8:55pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/self-linking-a-model-or-users-follow-users/7601/3 "2020-04-07T20:55:04Z")

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Thanks for the answer.

If I now want to apply the CounterCache behavior to the number of followers, is it correct that I have to create a followers\_count field in the users table and have to change the relevant code as follows?

In the Users table:

```
$this->belongsToMany('Users', [
    'through' => 'FollowingUsers'
]);
```

And in the FollowingUsers table (to be created):

```
$this->addBehavior('CounterCache', [
    'Users' => ['followers_count']
 ]);

$this->belongsTo('Users', [
    'foreignKey' => 'user_id',
    'joinType' => 'INNER',
    'cascadeCallbacks' => true
]);
$this->belongsTo('Users', [
    'foreignKey' => 'following_user_id',
    'joinType' => 'INNER',
    'cascadeCallbacks' => true
]);
```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zuluru](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.cakephp.org/zuluru/32/1230_2.png) [@Zuluru](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/Zuluru)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 12:03am UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/self-linking-a-model-or-users-follow-users/7601/4 "2020-04-08T00:03:53Z")

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Never used the counter cache yet, so I can’t comment on this code. You do definitely have to add a column for the count. 🙂