Storing multiple numbers

[smatts9]

I have a mysql table full of items, and I have a field called "related". Each item has a unique id called id. I'm wondering what's the best way to store the id's of related items?

id ¦ name ¦ related
1 ¦ name1 ¦ 2,4,9
2 ¦ name2 ¦ 12,1,4
3 ¦ name3 ¦ 9,29,7
4 ¦ name4 ¦ 34,2,2

etc, etc, etc. There are more fields but unimportant for what I am trying to accomplish.

Is this a good way of storing them? If not what is? And how would I be able to use that info usefully? Can you write a PHP script to separate them? I'm thinking of using a script with while() to go through and list all the items that are related with their name and description. Thanks for your help.

[coopster]

You could certainly do it that way, but I'm not sure that is the way I would go about it. I would separate the relateds to their own table, a cross-reference of sorts.
ids

id ¦ name 
1  ¦ name1 
2  ¦ name2 
3  ¦ name3 
4  ¦ name4

relateds

id ¦ related 
1  ¦ 2 
1  ¦ 4 
1  ¦ 9 
2  ¦ 12 
2  ¦ 1 
2  ¦ 4 
3  ¦ 9 
3  ¦ 29 
3  ¦ 7 
4  ¦ 34 
4  ¦ 2

[smatts9]

ok sounds good, thanks.