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Select from comma delimited list previously saved in a char field

I have a table with, among other fields, a varchar field named "Countries" that contains a comma delimited lists of country codes ( ie "28,76,78,98")
How can i select for instance all records where the id 78 is in that Countries list?

Thanks
Jaime

Simon

where countries like '%[^0-9]78[^0-9]%'

GreatSolutions

ASKER

Hi
It doesn't work

Neil Russell

The worst possiible way to use SQL fields is to try storing compound data in them. One field should contain one value and nothing more.
Storing complex data like that slows your system down by massive amounts. A linked table with two fields in it would have been your answer.

NewTable:CountryLinks
int ReferencID
int CountryCode

The referenceID is the key of the record that originally held your "Countries" field and CountryCode is each of the individual elements from your Counries field.

So assuming that your example above where you had country codes ( "28,76,78,98") in a row with an ID field value of 129, you would have entries of....
ReferenceID CountryCode
129 28
129 76
129 78
129 98

Now you can easily select anything in a normal, indexed, SELECT statement joining the two tables.

GreatSolutions

ASKER

I understand Neil but in this case i must use the field with the concat values in it...

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Neil Russell

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GreatSolutions

ASKER

Changed the double quotes to single, and also added "or countries='78' for the case where there is only one country. Tested and it works correctly. I don't mind about speed, this is a table with a few hundred records at the most

Many thanks