From: Martijn Tonies
Date: July 31 2008 2:31pm
Subject: Re: SET vs. ENUM
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/213934
Message-Id: <02d501c8f31a$2bdecc60$9902a8c0@martijnws>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Jerry,

> >> Other than the fact that an ENUM can have many more values than a SET,
> >is
> >> there any particular reason to choose one over the other?
> >
> >Well, they are -different things- ...
> >
> >SETs shouldn't be used at all, IMO.
> >
> [JS] Why?

It goes against normalizing your data, that's why.

You cannot query them properly, that's why (just check the archives of this
list).

You cannot add a possible value (same goes for ENUM) without a DDL
statement, so "data" is intertwined with "metadata", which is bad.

The metadata is not portable to other systems (neither is ENUM).

> >ENUM can be somewhat useful, I guess.


Need more reasons? :-)

Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL, NexusDB, Oracle &
MS SQL Server
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com
My thoughts:
http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/
Database development questions? Check the forum!
http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com