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Asked: 2026-05-20T10:54:01+00:00

I have a many to many relationship, and need to decide whether to create

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I have a many to many relationship, and need to decide whether to create another table for it – or to store the relationship in a table with a string (CSV)… in other words:

EXAMPLE:
tbl_Team
tbl_Fan

(optional): tbl_fanTeam
I want to be able to pick all fans of a team, or pick an individual fan and see all teams that they are a fan of.

What is the best method in my SQL call, is it with using JOIN with a 3rd relational table (tbl_fanteam) or to place all the values in one of the existing two tables? Hope this makes sense…

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    When you use JOIN ... ON a.x = b.y the database can take advantage of indexes to speed up the query.

    When you use FIND_IN_SET the indexes cannot be used so it will require a full scan. This will be slow if your tables have many rows.

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