Question

Can I search for 1 AND 2 AND 3 without getting a false match because 11,22,33 are in the field?

A field that has the string = “11,22,33” should then not return any results.

Answer 1

First of all, using comma separated values in a field is problematic, and you should consider storing them in a sepatate table instead. Then you could get the record more efficiently:

select ...
from mainTable t
inner join valueTable v1 on v1.id = t.id and v1.value = 1
inner join valueTable v2 on v2.id = t.id and v2.value = 2
inner join valueTable v3 on v3.id = t.id and v3.value = 3

If that is not possible, you have to go the slow string matching way. To match the values in a comma separated string, you can use the like operator:

... where
  concat(',', someField, ',') like '%,1,%' and
  concat(',', someField, ',') like '%,2,%' and
  concat(',', someField, ',') like '%,3,%'

Putting the separator on both sides of the searched value makes sure that you don’t get any false positives. Adding the commas before and after the field value makes sure that you can find the first and last value.