Check if value exists in a comma separated list in MySQL?

To check if value exists in a comma separated list, you can use FIND_IN_SET() function.

The syntax is as follows

SELECT *FROM yourTablename WHERE FIND_IN_SET(‘yourValue’,yourColumnName) > 0;

Let us first create a table. The query to create a table is as follows

mysql> create table existInCommaSeparatedList
   - > (
   - > Id int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
   - > Name varchar(200)
   - > );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.68 sec)

Now you can insert some records in the table using insert command.

The query is as follows

mysql> insert into existInCommaSeparatedList(Name) values('John,Carol,Sam,Larry,Bob,David');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.35 sec)
mysql> insert into existInCommaSeparatedList(Name) values('Maxwell,Chris,James');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.14 sec)
mysql> insert into existInCommaSeparatedList(Name) values('Robert,Ramit');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.34 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement.

The query is as follows

mysql> select *from existInCommaSeparatedList;

The following is the output

+----+--------------------------------+
| Id | Name                           |
+----+--------------------------------+
|  1 | John,Carol,Sam,Larry,Bob,David |
|  2 | Maxwell,Chris,James            |
|  3 | Robert,Ramit                   |
+----+--------------------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Here is the query to check if value exists in a comma separated list. We are checking for the field with comma separated text “Robert”

mysql> SELECT *FROM existInCommaSeparatedList WHERE FIND_IN_SET('Robert',Name) > 0;

The following is the output

+----+--------------+
| Id | Name         |
+----+--------------+
|  3 | Robert,Ramit |
+----+--------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)