I want to join 2 tables, one table having an email field and the

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Editorial Team

Asked: June 15, 20262026-06-15T18:21:55+00:00 2026-06-15T18:21:55+00:00

I want to join 2 tables, one table having an email field and the other having a comma separated email list.

This is the scenario:

Team
--------------
- team_id
- email_list (this is a comma separated email address)


Persons
--------------
 - person_id
 - email

I tried something like this:

SELECT team.* FROM team INNER JOIN persons ON trim(persons.email) IN (CONCAT('\'',REPLACE(REPLACE(team.email_list,' ',''),',','\',\''),'\''))

but the string inside the IN clause seems to be like this "’email1′,’email2′,’email3’"

Any ideas to make it work?

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Editorial Team · Answer 1 · 2026-06-15T18:21:55+00:00

Editorial Team

MySQL has a built-in function that can help with comma-separated lists:

SELECT  . . .
FROM team t INNER JOIN persons p 
  ON FIND_IN_SET(p.email, t.email_list);

But you won’t be happy with the performance, since it can’t be optimized to use an index.

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