I agree it is poor design, but other than putting a full text index on the answers I'm not sure what can be done.
Of course, that might well be faster for retrievals; but it would be slower on insertion. I don't know which would predominate in this case. Regards, Jerry Schwartz Global Information Incorporated 195 Farmington Ave. Farmington, CT 06032 860.674.8796 / FAX: 860.674.8341 > -----Original Message----- > From: Martijn Tonies [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 10:13 AM > To: mysql@lists.mysql.com > Subject: Re: Max columns in a tabel in MyISAM storage engine > > > > > Not necessarily. I do precisely this for a data base whose > structure I do > > not control. I stuff > > > > |code1|code2|code3| ... > > > > Into an unused text field. The users can query on LIKE > "%|code2|%. The key > > is to have a delimiter at the start and end of the entire > list, so that > the > > string match doesn't get confused. > > > > Of course, this would probably be painfully slow. I can't > say whether or > not > > it would be slower than the other alternatives. > > It is slow, because it cannot use an index. > > All in all, bad design IMO, cause you _know_ it's slow beforehand. > > Martijn Tonies > Database Workbench - development tool for MySQL, and more! > Upscene Productions > http://www.upscene.com > My thoughts: > http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/ > Database development questions? Check the forum! > http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com > > > -- > MySQL General Mailing List > For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql > To unsubscribe: > http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
