Question

Database Structure

The transaction_detail table entries can be searched by using a search term submitted by the user. The keywords column includes search terms such as description and customer name and are inserted when a new record is added. Then the keywords column is checked for any matches with the search term.

Person table

+----+------+
| ID | NAME |
+----+------+
| 12 | Mike |
+----+------+

Transaction_detail Table

+----+--------------------------+-----------------+---------------------------+
| ID | DESCRIPTION              | CUSTOMER_ID(FK) | KEYWORDS                  |
+----+--------------------------+-----------------+---------------------------+
| 55 | Delivery from ABC Stores |              12 | ABC stores, delivery,mike |
+----+--------------------------+-----------------+---------------------------+

Scenario

When the customer name(Mike) is changed, it is necessary to update the keyword column in every row with the Customer_id 12.

However when the Transaction_details table has a few hundreds of rows this method becomes quite inefficient. Can someone tell me another way to improve the searching for a record in the table.

Answer 1

As @Niko said, this should be stored in another table ( or two ):

Keywords table

+----+------------+
| id | name       |
+----+------------+
|  1 | ABC stores |
|  2 | delivery   |
+----+------------+

Person-to-keywords table

+-----------+------------+
| person_id | keyword_id |
+-----------+------------+
|        12 |          1 |
|        12 |          2 |
+-----------+------------+

Then, when you want to know what keyword goes to witch person, just join them on the IDs and you will get your list.