Search Imploded Results from a Column

[Anon]

hello,

i want to retrieve results from a table with imploded contents in a column using a passed variable.

Ex.

i would like to display a list of items that have a certain category id in a column. one column is for the imploded category id numbers. i want to search that column for the specific category id that i passed from a previous page.

the category ids are stored as pipe seperated (ex. 9|30|45|33 )

i want to display the results of records that have the complete id number and not just a %LIKE%

i hope this makes sense and is an efficent way of sorting results for a database with over 3000 products.

thanks

[Anon]

what i have done is...

add a "|" before and after the category string, and then i can search by using a like statement.

does thsi sound like the most efficient?

thanks