Serialize vs Implode

Question

What do you think is the better way to go about storing a few image id\'s inside a record in a MySQL database? It\'s just the image id\'s which will be used to fetch the ima

Answer 1

If you don't want to (over?)normalize your tables, and you really just want to store a list of ids then I suggest using a simple comma-separated list, because already MySQL has some functions which can directly deal with comma-separated string values:

FIND_IN_SET: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/string-functions.html#function_find-in-set

SELECT FIND_IN_SET('b','a,b,c,d'); --> 2

CONCAT_WS: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/string-functions.html#function_concat-ws

SELECT CONCAT_WS(',','First name',NULL,'Last Name'); --> 'First name,Last Name'

Of course, you won't be able to do SQL JOINs, but it still can be helpful.