I've got a varchar column which contains values like "123, 234, 345" and I'd like to use this value as the argument to IN (). If I specify the values like this:

WHERE foo IN (1,2,3)

... everthing works fine, but when I try to use a column:

WHERE foo IN (varchar_column_containing_comma-delimited_numbers)

... it doesn't work as expected. What am I doing wrong?

to answer your question: use FIND_IN_SET function

to give you good advice: never store a list of ids in a single column

It works, but my god it's slow...

I'm well aware, but I need a quick and dirty solution at the moment.

Thanks!