Mysql WHERE problem with comma-separated list

Question

I need help for this problem.

In MYSQL Table i have a field :

Field  : artist_list  
Values : 1,5,3,401

I need to find all records for artist uid 401

I do this

SELECT uid FROM tbl WHERE artist_list IN ('401');

I have all record where artist_list fields values are '401' only, but if i have 11,401 this query do not match.

Any idea ?

(I cant user LIKE method because if artist uid is 3 (match for 30, 33, 3333)...

Answer 1

Short Term Solution

Use the FIND_IN_SET function:

SELECT uid 
  FROM tbl 
 WHERE FIND_IN_SET('401', artist_list) > 0

Long Term Solution

Normalize your data - this appears to be a many-to-many relationship already involving two tables. The comma separated list needs to be turned into a table of it's own:

ARTIST_LIST

• artist_id (primary key, foreign key to ARTIST)
• uid (primary key, foreign key to TBL)

Answer 2

Your database organization is a problem; you need to normalize it. Rather than having one row with a comma-separated list of values, you should do one value per row:

uid    artist
1      401
1       11
1        5
2        5
2        4
2        2

Then you can query:

SELECT uid
  FROM table
 WHERE artist = 401

You should also look into database normalization because what you have is just going to cause more and more problems in the future.