Alternative to lots of booleans in MySQL?

Question

let's say I have a checkbox search form like this:

Check all that interests you:

• bowling
• billiard
• sweets

Can I request this data from a database instead of having to resort adding tons of booleans to a database such as this?

(VenueId, IfBowling, IfBilliard, IfSweets)

And maybe just have one column that would contain all of those options that the venue itself has?

Answer 1

Alternative .. sure .. easy :

User table, Interests table, UserInterests table.

UserInterests is used to store many-to-many relation between Users and Interests, and contains values which are FOREGN KEYs from said tables.

P.S. You really should read SQL Antipatterns book. You would learn a lot from it.