Using stored array and two tables

[etoast]

Hello
I am trying to create a visual summary of the data I have in MySQL. So Table A has id and name, for example:
1 Saw
2 Spanner
3 Hammer
etc

Table B has id, section and itemid, where the itemid field is an array of numbers which relate to id in Table A. So for example:
1 Indoor 1,2,3
2 Outdoor 1,2,3
3 Kitchen 1,3
etc

I want to make a grid showing each item, and whether or not it is in the array for each section, like this:

Item / Indoor / Outdoor / Kitchen
Saw yes yes yes
Spanner yes yes no
Hammer yes yes yes

Completely stumped so any clues as to how to query that array, or where to look to help me understand what I need to think about would be much appreciated.
Thanks

[NogDog]

What type of column are you using for that array of numbers? Is it just a comma-delimited string within a character/text column, or an actual array type?

(A more normalized design would be to use 3 tables: one for the items, one for the sections, and one to define relations between those other two tables.)

[etoast]

Thanks, yes, starting to see the error of my ways.
It is just a varchar column with numbers separated by commas.

[NogDog]

I'm guessing that for this purpose it might be easiest to handle it in the PHP code, though it gets kind of ugly. You could explode() that field into an actual array, then in each applicable output column, do an in_array() test to see if it includes that value.

[bradgrafelman]

I'd say it would be much better to first normalize the DB schema. After that, you not only have a more proper/useful DB design in the first place, but doing the reporting mentioned above becomes much, much easier/simpler.