Re: Best way to normalize data from two tables

[Peter Brawley]

Lose the names column in the main table.

create table main(id int primary key, ...);
create table names(
  id int primary key, 
  mid int, 
  name char(16),
  foreign key(mid) references main(id) on update cascade on delete cascade
);

Retrieve names with a join ...

select main.id, group_concat(names.name)
from main
join names on main.id=names.mid
group by main.id;