Best Way To Search?

[Winter0Star]

Going to make a site here soon and I need a little help.

 

I will be storing an array of ID's into a MySQL database.  I'm using the serialize function to store the array (however, I can change this if there is a better way).  However, I want to be able to search for ID's directly through the MySQL statement.

 

For example, I need to search for ID "254".  I can't search through the serialized information unless I pull it out first.  I want to be able to do something like this...

 

SELECT name FROM table WHERE id_list = '$id'

 

I'm looking for the best way to directly search for an ID.  I hope this makes sense.

[fugix]

instead of storing an array of id's into your database using serialize, why not create a field for storing your id's, and make it the primary key. If this is the way you would like to do it, your select mysql statement will be valid