Re: search comma separated db column

[Jesper Öhnstedt]

Yes. As I said I agree that it's bad practice and that designing a field like that without reason is wrong. The only reasons for packing values is size or as use as a static set. Packing bitvalues together in an integer type is a very common practice.

I just resently learned of the 'GROUP_CONCAT' function that can take care of concatinating values into a structured string when you use that 'set value' in your client code. This eliminate some of the cases where I would consider this as a solution.

I appologise if I gave offense, it was not my intention. I only reacted to what I considered an unhelpful reply to a question. If this guy is stuck with a database design that implements one or more fields this way, redesigning might not be an option.

I have also noted that Peter is a valuble member of this comunity and this is the only answer he has given, that I have read, that I don't agree with. And he is obviously better at MySQL than I.

I'm sorry about the dig concerning posting links as answers. That usually is a sign of 'pomposity' of the poster. That seems not to be the case here.

/Jesper