SQL: Separating data by a delimiter VS seperate columns

Asked Jun 04 '16 at 22:10

Active Jun 04 '16 at 22:38

Viewed 23 times

I am working on a bit of database architecture and I was curious whether separating a specific columns data by a delimiter would be a better idea than having several unused columns.

My Data would have either one column which would allow me to have the desired amount of data without adding or removing columns in the formate of:

IDs = 1de; 2aa; 33s; 4sd; 532

Or I could separate it into 5 columns: ID1, ID2, ID3, ID4, ID5 and then correspond the correct ID with the column name. Most of the time though, I will not always need to use all five columns and eventually I might need more than five IDs at a time.

Any suggestions?

edited Jun 04 '16 at 22:38

asked Jun 04 '16 at 22:10

Shawn31313

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Is it MySQL or MS-SQL server? Can you please fix the tags? – Jocelyn Jun 04 '16 at 22:16
@Jocelyn It is MySQL thank you for pointing that out. – Shawn31313 Jun 04 '16 at 22:38
Please see my "don't use csv in columns" [answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/32620163) if you are insufferably bored – Drew Jun 05 '16 at 00:08

SQL: Separating data by a delimiter VS seperate columns

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