How to set the 'where' clause on a field with comma-seperated values?

Question

I have a db table with a field with values stored in the value1,value2,value3,value4 format. I want to find all the rows where this field contains a defined value, eg. value3.

How can I perform a query to search a value in a field like this one?

Answer 1

use FIND_IN_SET()

SELECT  *
FROM    tableName
WHERE   FIND_IN_SET('value3', 'comma separated value here') > 0

• SQLFiddle Demo

SOURCE

• MySQL FIND_IN_SET

Description from MySQL Docs:

Returns a value in the range of 1 to N if the string str is in the string list strlist consisting of N substrings. A string list is a string composed of substrings separated by “,” characters. If the first argument is a constant string and the second is a column of type SET, the FIND_IN_SET() function is optimized to use bit arithmetic. Returns 0 if str is not in strlist or if strlist is the empty string. Returns NULL if either argument is NULL.

Answer 2

You can do this using like:

where concat(',', field, ',') like '%,value3,%'