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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-15T18:21:40+00:00

I am currently in the process of designing a database. I have a table

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I am currently in the process of designing a database.

I have a table of 20,000+ records, which has a set in it (4 values). I also am making another table (100+ records) which will have an enum over the same set (1 value from the same set)

Example of current:

tbl1                          tbl2
ID   | Letters | Stuff        ID   | Letter | Stuff 
----------------------        ---------------------
0    | A,B,C,D | ...          0    | D      | ...
1    | A,B,C,D |              1    | C      |
2    | C,D     |              2    | A      |
3    | B,C,D   |              3    | D      |
...

Is there a way to make sure that the sets are the same, and can I compare the enum and the set?

I also might need to add more options to the set as our data changes. Would a separate table for that set be necessary, and then an association table for that?

Example of what I just said:

tbl1                tbl2             
ID | Stuff          ID   | LetterID | Stuff 
------------        ------------------------  
0  | ...            0    | 3        | ...
1  |                1    | 2        |
2  |                2    | 0        |
3  |                3    | 3        |
...

tblLetters          tblLetters1 (Association table)
ID | Letter         tbl1Id | letterId
------------        ------------------
0  | A              0      | 0
1  | B              0      | 1
2  | C              0      | 2
3  | D              0      | 3
...?                ...

My only major concern with this is whether the size of the association table would be too big (most of the rows in tbl1 will have all 4 elements of the set).

Thank you! Sorry if I didn’t explain my problem very well. I’m very green when it comes to SQL.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Your second solution seems fine, comma separated values in 1 column should normally be avoided. You might not need an ID, and I’d drop the ENUM type for the column, and use the actual type / column definition of the letter in tblLetters:

    tbl1                tbl2             
ID | Stuff          ID   | Letter   | Stuff 
------------        ------------------------  
0  | ...            0    | D        | ...
1  |                1    | C        |
2  |                2    | A        |
3  |                3    | D        |

tblLetters          tblLetters1 (Association table)
Letter              tbl1Id | letter
------------        ------------------
A                   0      | A
B                   0      | B
C                   0      | C
D                   0      | D

    Possibly add a FOREIGN KEY constraint to tblLetters1.letter & tbl2.letter to enforce an existing letter from tblLetters.

    And 80K rows in total is not many by any standard, it should be fine (use the proper indexes though)

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