Filter MySQL comma separated field

Question

In my table there is field called agency_ids . It will have comma separated string values like below. a0001, a0002 . One or may agent ids can contain per record.

Now i need to search the table using given agency id.

Ex - if i give a1235 it should return both rows showed above. If i give a1234 it should return only row with a1234.

How can i do it ? I tried agency_ids IN ('a1234') and FIND_IN_SET but it didn't work.

Complete query -

SELECT ov.*,c.name as company_name 
FROM (SELECT v.vacancy_id,v.company_id,v.designation,v.job_ref_number 
      FROM `t2o_vacancies` AS v  
      WHERE `opening_date` <= '2014-01-27' 
      AND `closing_date` >= '2014-01-27'
      AND posting_type= 'Agency' 
      AND agency_ids IN ('a1234') 
      ORDER BY v.opening_date DESC ) AS ov 
      LEFT JOIN t2o_companies AS c ON ov.company_id = c.id

Answer 1

Try using like

and agency_ids like '%a1235%'

instead of using IN

AND agency_ids IN ('a1234')

in will allow you to specify multiple values, but it will not look at a1234,a1235 as two different values.

Answer 2

How about using LIKE operator instead of IN?

SELECT ov.*,c.name as company_name 
FROM (SELECT v.vacancy_id,v.company_id,v.designation,v.job_ref_number 
  FROM `t2o_vacancies` AS v  
  WHERE `opening_date` <= '2014-01-27' 
  AND `closing_date` >= '2014-01-27'
  AND posting_type= 'Agency' 
  AND agency_ids LIKE '%a1234%' 
  ORDER BY v.opening_date DESC ) AS ov 
  LEFT JOIN t2o_companies AS c ON ov.company_id = c.id

Answer 3

you can sure use where agency_ids like %a1235% yet this might not be the best approach.

have you considered using relational database ?

if you can add another table to your schema you can do

table t2o_companies
normal structure......

table t2o_vacancies
normal structure......


table t2o_companies_t2o_vacancies
id company_id vacancie_id

i'm not sure whats your current schema is, yet if you gona need to fetch row using agency_id then i would have a join table rather than just saving them in 1 field with comma separation.

yet if you dont want to change schema, then just dont forget to index agency_ids for faster searching.