Join query

[tito]

Hello, what is the best way to do this?

I have parentlist in a table as 1,2,5,8 and I am trying to match the categoryid with the parentlist with a left join (I know that the below is no good, I am putting it for illustration purpose of what I am trying to do)

ON(t.categoryid IN explode (',',c.parentlist))

Thank you

[Piranha]

The best way is to follow the rules for database normalization. The way you have done it now will, as you see, cause trouble. And it will continue causing trouble until you have normalized the database.