I have an application that requires the storage of various flags (by
"flag", I mean a variable that is either 1 or 0).
What's a good way of doing this? I've thought about two ways:
Method 1: Make a TINYINT column for each flag
I can use TINYINT NOT NULL datatype for storing each flag. The
disadvantage is that I use 8 bits when 1 bit would have sufficed.
Method 2: Make a single SET column for all the flags
I can use a SET for storing all the flags. But the disadvantage is that
the programming syntax gets a bit more complicated. e.g. instead of being
able to do:
SELECT * FROM fanfics WHERE unfinished = 0
I would have to do:
SELECT * FROM fanfics WHERE FIND_IN_SET('unfinished', flags) = 0
Does anyone have other suggestions?
Another concern that I have is the time required to add a new flag. If I
have a large table, adding a new column to the table can be quite time
consuming. (I'm guessing if I use the SET method, adding a new flag would
be instantaneous unless the number of flags was divisible by 8, requiring
the SET to expand by one byte.)
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