seperate columns or one big column

[scorpioy]

If I have a page that contains many checkboxes and a text area for people to input info, and these info will go to database which needs to be made searchable, would it be better to append checked checkbox status to the end of content in text area and store inside one column or... is it better to use seperate columns to store each checkbox check status?

Can someone give me some light regarding this issue in terms of performnance and maintainance? Which way would be better?

Thanks.

[inerte]

There's a column type named "SET" that accepts a list of values and you can more than one for row values.

[Sxooter]

Basically, man columns is generally more easily and quickly searchable (although it might result in a rather SQL query construct of ors and ands...) One column is generally more efficient in terms of disk space, CPU overhead and I/O, but is harder to search.

Also, by using multiple columns you can set individual constraints, defaults, et. al. on those columns more easily

[scorpioy]

Thanks, guys.
I think Set type is a very good choice.

[scorpioy]

after i try some SET examples, I realized it seems elements in the set has to be defined at the time the table is created, then we can edit elements inside, but it even restrict the value that can be added, which means only a combination of two or more elements can be added into the set.

how could I implement set in order to keep tract statuses of a list of checkbox?

Thanks.