database normalization users and messages database

Question

I'm a newbie with databases and I want to create a database which will have

1. Username VARCHAR(16)
2. Membership status ( paid or free )
3. Message TEXT (most likely or should I use something else?)
4. Messages counter for a user 'to count the total number of messages for a user (probably UNSIGNED INT).
5. Catagory of the message VARCHAR(60)
6. Date posted DATE

Now I have this as a layout for the database I am not sure how to get it to the first and second and third normal forms. Your help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

Seems like you want a user table:

UserID, UserName, member_status

And a message table:

UserID, category, date, message

A category table:

category, description

You can get the total number of messages for a user with a query like:

select count(*) from message where userid = 'someuser'

so don't store that.

Hope this gets you started. Have fun...