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mysqljoin
Shackrock
Shackrock

Reputation: 4701

PHP MySQL: JOIN vs. FIND_IN_SET

I have a many to many relationship, and need to decide whether to create another table for it - or to store the relationship in a table with a string (CSV)... in other words:

EXAMPLE: tbl_Team tbl_Fan

(optional): tbl_fanTeam I want to be able to pick all fans of a team, or pick an individual fan and see all teams that they are a fan of.

What is the best method in my SQL call, is it with using JOIN with a 3rd relational table (tbl_fanteam) or to place all the values in one of the existing two tables? Hope this makes sense...

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2431

Answers (1)

Mark Byers
Mark Byers

Reputation: 838836

When you use JOIN ... ON a.x = b.y the database can take advantage of indexes to speed up the query.

When you use FIND_IN_SET the indexes cannot be used so it will require a full scan. This will be slow if your tables have many rows.

Upvotes: 3

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